Military transport – Image by shauking from Pixabay
(BRUSSELS) – The European Parliament and Council reached a deal Tuesday on new rules to incentivise EU countries to jointly procure defence products and support the EU’s defence industry.
The new regulation, informally agreed by the two EU legislators, will establish a short-term instrument to boost the European defence industry through common procurement (EDIRPA), until 31 December 2025. The tool should help member states fill their most urgent and critical defence needs, especially exacerbated by their transfers of defence products to Ukraine, in a voluntary and collaborative way.
It should also help to foster the competitiveness and efficiency of the European Defence Technological and industrial base (EDTIB), including SMEs and mid-capitalisation companies, by ramping up manufacturing and opening supply chains to cross-border cooperation. At least three member states are needed to activate common procurement, which will cover defence products as defined in Article 2 of Directive 2009/81/EC.
Parliament and Council negotiators agreed on a budget of 300 million euro to finance the implementation of the instrument. The EU will contribute up to 20% to each purchase of the estimated value of the common procurement contract, for each consortium of member states and associated countries.
To benefit from these funds, entities with common procurement contracts will have to be established in the EU or in associated countries (including EFTA members of the European Economic Area – i.e. Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway).
During the talks, MEPs obtained that member states engaging in a joint procurement may also agree to purchase defence products together with Ukraine and Moldova.
The Commission is to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the actions taken under the EDIRPA on termination of the programme. It will identify possible shortfalls and critical dependencies on non associated third countries on raw materials, components and production capacities and propose mitigating measures.
Further information, European Parliament
