{"id":449960,"date":"2026-04-10T12:42:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/04\/10\/difesa-via-libera-ue-ai-prestiti-safe-per-francia-e-repubblica-ceca\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T14:33:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T12:33:36","slug":"defence-eu-council-approves-safe-loans-for-france-and-the-czech-republic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/04\/10\/defence-eu-council-approves-safe-loans-for-france-and-the-czech-republic\/","title":{"rendered":"Defence: EU Council approves SAFE loans for France and the Czech Republic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brussels \u2013 The EU Council adopted implementing decisions making financial assistance under SAFE, the <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/05\/21\/eu-ambassadors-approve-150-bln-eur-safe-defense-instrument\/\">150 billion euro defense industry program<\/a>, available to&nbsp;<strong>France and the Czech Republic<\/strong>. With today\u2019s (10 April) approval,&nbsp;<strong>Paris <\/strong><span class=\"HwtZe\" lang=\"it\"><span class=\"jCAhz ChMk0b\"><span class=\"ryNqvb\"><strong>will receive loans of around 15.09 billion euros<\/strong> (including pre-financing of around 2.26 billion euros), while <strong>Prague will be granted 2.06 billion euros<\/strong> (including pre-financing of 309 million euros).<\/span><\/span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The loans granted to France and the Czech Republic bring <strong>the total number of EU Member States to have benefited from the SAFE program to 18. <\/strong>A first group of countries received approval on 16 January (payments made on 11 February), while a second group received the same approval on 26 January (payments made on 17 February).&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><strong>V<\/strong><span class=\"HwtZe\" lang=\"it\"><span class=\"jCAhz ChMk0b\"><span class=\"ryNqvb\"><strong>asilis Palmas<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: normal\">, Defense Minister of Cyprus, the&nbsp;country with the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: normal\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cyprus-presidency.consilium.europa.eu\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rotating presidency of the Council of the EU<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: normal\">, expressed satisfaction. &#8220;Strengthening the Union\u2019s defense readiness and strategic autonomy, by reducing dependencies and enhancing the EU\u2019s capacity to respond effectively and proactively, is a Cyprus Presidency key priority,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paris will receive around 15.09 billion euros, while Prague 2.06 billion euros. The number of Member States benefiting from the special European program has risen to 18. The Cypriot Presidency is satisfied<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":449937,"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","show_comment_section":"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":[25774,30809],"tags":[26261,27336,27736,25744,31602,33394],"class_list":["post-449960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-briefs","category-defence-security","tag-czechrepublic-en","tag-industry-en","tag-safe-en","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449960","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\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449961,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449960\/revisions\/449961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}