The EU Council has given its final green light to new laws aiming to simplify security and defence procurement, facilitate defence investments, and support the defence industry.
The new rules will remove administrative delays in procurement, permitting, reporting and cross-border cooperation, and give member states and industry a clearer path to act quickly and reinforce Europe’s defence capacity.
The laws are part of the EU’s so-called “Omnibus V” simplification package. “The defence readiness simplification omnibus will help Europe strengthen its security by making it easier to invest in, procure and deliver the defence capabilities we need,” said Ireland’s defence minister Helen McEntee, for the EU presidency.
- a regulation on defence readiness and facilitating defence investments and conditions for defence industry
- a regulation on the acceleration of permit-granting for defence readiness projects
- a directive on the simplification of intra-EU transfers of defence-related products and the simplification of security and defence procurement
The new regulation simplifies the management and implementation of the European Defence Fund (EDF) and clarifies how the EU’s environmental and chemicals legislation apply to defence readiness activities.
It simplifies the administrative requirements for applications to the EDF, while increasing support to SMEs and making implementation of the fund more predictable. Notably, it increases the funding rate bonus for projects involving SMEs.
The new regulation also aims to provide a high level of protection of human health and the environment. It therefore amends the environmental and chemicals legislation regarding exemptions available for use of chemical substances for defence readiness purposes.
A harmonised framework will speed up permit-granting for defence readiness projects, while safeguarding member states competences. The maximum duration of the permit-granting process is set at 102 working days. A permit request would be tacitly approved if the competent authority has not taken a decision before the expiration of the time limit. At the same time, the new regulation ensures that derogations from tacit approval remain possible: national law will be able to provide for such derogations where there is a grave risk to human health or national security.
The new directive removes administrative delays in security and defence procurement, facilitates transfers of defence-related products within the EU and strengthens intra-EU cooperation.
The new rules are further aligned with the broader public procurement rules wherever appropriate, while taking into account the specificities of the defence market.
The text increases the thresholds in the defence procurement directive to ease the administrative burden and give authorities more time to focus on the major defence projects that really matter. It also introduces the possibility of occasional joint procurement, a de minimis rule for contract modifications and enhanced flexibility in framework agreements.
Finally, the new directive introduces two new mandatory general transfer licences: one for transfers between certified suppliers and certified recipients, and one for transfers in the framework of an intra-EU industrial partnership.
The legislative acts will now be published in the EU’s official journal in the coming days and will enter into force on the twentieth day following that of their publication.
Boosting European defence readiness (background information)
