{"id":433442,"date":"2025-07-30T13:13:26","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T11:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/07\/30\/difesa-18-stati-membri-hanno-gia-richiesto-prestiti-ue-dal-fondo-safe\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T15:37:59","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T13:37:59","slug":"defense-18-eu-member-states-have-already-applied-for-safe-fund-loans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/07\/30\/defense-18-eu-member-states-have-already-applied-for-safe-fund-loans\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense: 18 EU member states have already applied for SAFE fund loans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – In times of continental rearmament<\/strong>, the chancelleries of the EU-27 are moving in a scattered, uncoordinated manner. However, the 150 billion in loans<\/strong> made available by Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong> is tempting. Thus, the list of Member States that have applied to access the SAFE Fund<\/strong> has grown to 18, including Italy. <\/p>\n

At the stroke of midnight between yesterday (29 July) and today, the deadline set by the EU executive for submitting preliminary expressions of interest<\/strong> in using the SAFE fund <\/strong>(Security Action for Europe) expired. With a 150 billion euro<\/strong> budget, the fund is the first significant European military investment<\/a> to fund<\/strong> joint defense procurement, in which both Member States and third countries<\/strong> such as Norway, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Ukraine can participate. <\/p>\n

As of today, 18 requests for access<\/strong> have been received from as many EU countries – Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain – for a total of at least 127 billion euros<\/strong>. Tonight’s, however, Commission spokesmen emphasized, was a “soft deadline<\/strong>.” National governments that want to can apply for loans until the formal deadline of 30 November 2025.<\/p>\n

\"Ursula<\/a>
European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen (photo: Dati Bendo\/European Commission)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

The SAFE Fund is one of the two pillars of Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong>‘s ReArm Europe plan<\/a> (which recently faced a confidence motion<\/a> in the European Parliament). It complements the commitment by Brussels<\/a> <\/em>to ease EU rules on defense borrowing<\/strong> up to 1.5 percent of GDP by activating the safeguard clause<\/strong> of the Stability and Growth Pact<\/strong> to mobilize (the Commission hopes) some 650 billion euros in investments<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Two opposing, almost schizophrenic movements: on the one hand, the 27 member states are encouraged to spend independently<\/strong> (with the risk of further worsening<\/a> the well-known interoperability problems); on the other, to coordinate on joint procurement<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 For Defense and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius<\/strong>, the governments’ interest “demonstrates the unity and ambition of the EU in security and defense matters,” and the SAFE instrument “is a symbol of our collective commitment to strengthen our preparedness<\/strong>” in a time of high geostrategic volatility<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 A situation in which the twelve-star executive is considering militarizing the eastern borders<\/strong> to keep Russia in check:<\/strong> to do this, it proposes the use of fresh funds<\/a> from the next EU 2028-2034 budget<\/strong>, on which particularly complex inter-institutional negotiations just got underway and look like they will be<\/a> particularly complex. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The instrument for joint procurement, introduced by von der Leyen’s ReArm Europe plan, is a success. National governments have until 30 November to apply for access to the EUR 150 billion put on the table by the Commission<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":269550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30809],"tags":[31257,29924,27857,25882,30664,31602],"class_list":["post-433442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-security","tag-andrius-kubilius-en","tag-defense-en","tag-investimenti-en","tag-rearm-europe-en","tag-safe-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433443,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433442\/revisions\/433443"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}