The leaders of Germany, France, Italy and 16 other European states have called for the EU’s investment bank to ease restrictions on lending money to invest in military projects.
The joint call from a majority of EU member states comes as all 27 leaders are due to meet on Monday, for a summit in Brussels discussing Europe’s defence and security.
The letter said the European Investment Bank (EIB) should put a “stronger emphasis in its lending policy to enhance the support and the volume of available funding in the field of security and defence”.
The correspondence was addressed to the head of the EIB, Nadia Calviño, and António Costa, president of the European Council, who chairs the summits of EU leaders.
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It was “crucial” that Europe took decisive action to become a bigger military power, in light of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, the letter said.
Last year the EIB allowed financing for “dual use” products, which can have both military and civilian uses. The letter from leaders, sent on Thursday, called for the EU bank to go further to help European states beef up their militaries.
The investment bank should examine how it could play “an even stronger role in providing investment funding and leveraging private funding for the security and defence sector”, the letter said.
The letter was also signed by the leaders of Spain, the Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden.
“By expanding funding mechanisms and employing all available means, we can address the urgent need to grow Europe’s defence industrial and technological base, ensuring it is capable of meeting both immediate and long-term challenges,” the joint letter said. The group of leaders called for the EIB to do more to help “address the EU’s urgent investment needs”.
The proposals will be discussed when all 27 national leaders meet for an EU summit on defence in Brussels on Monday.
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A senior EU official described the summit as a key “stepping stone” towards European states working much more closely together on defence policy. This is likely to include a push for EU states to significantly increase spending in the area.
Ideas expected to be discussed by leaders include states clubbing together when purchasing military equipment to save money, and the joint funding of common EU defence projects.
“The direction of travel is clear: there will be more spending. There needs to be more spending and I hear no one around the table disagreeing,” the EU official said. “It does place defence at the top of the agenda and doesn’t mean that other priorities have to be given up.”
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