B10‑0147/2025

European Parliament resolution on the white paper on the future of European defence

(2025/2565(RSP))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,

– having regard its recommendation of 8 June 2022 to the Council and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on the EU’s Foreign, Security and Defence Policy after the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine[1],

– having regard to the UN Charter,

– having regard to the Strategic Compass for Security and Defence, adopted by the Council on 21 March 2022,

– having regard to the report by Sauli Niinistö, Special Adviser to the President of the European Commission, of 30 October 2024 entitled ‘Safer Together – Strengthening Europe’s Civilian and Military Preparedness and Readiness’,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas the President of the European Commission tasked the Commissioner for Defence and Space and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy with presenting a white paper on the future of European defence;

B. whereas Parliament and experts have called for a white paper on defence for more than a decade;

C. whereas the Strategic Compass was mainly drafted and negotiated before 24 February 2022; whereas the Strategic Compass is a very broad strategy that provides little guidance with regards to the urgent need to accomplish defence readiness and provide deterrence and defence capabilities to prepare for the most urgent military contingency;

D. whereas there is an urgent need to strengthen parliamentary oversight of European defence in order to guarantee a sound democratic basis for this crucial policy area;

E. whereas the European defence industrial actors not only face challenges but have also been able to profit from a much higher demand for defence products since February 2022, which has led to record profits, especially among prime contractors;

F. whereas innovative defence and dual-use start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have not, in a comparable manner, been able to profit from relevant EU funds or orders from and funding by national governments compared to prime contractors;

G. whereas the combined military spending efforts of EU Member States already exceed that of Russia but suffer from a lack of economies of scale and focus, highlighting the need for more efficiency and the streamlining of military expenses, in addition to the need for fresh investment;

H. whereas the many concrete recommendations contained in the Niinistö report should guide the work on the white paper also because the report presents a comprehensive and holistic approach to preparedness and readiness that encompasses all civilian and military aspects; whereas the report underlines that the EU does not have a plan on what to do in the event of an armed attack against a Member State and that the EU currently lacks the comprehensive capacity to bring all necessary EU resources together in a coordinated manner across institutional and operational silos;

I. whereas hybrid threats are designed to operate in the grey zone between peace and war, combining conventional and unconventional methods such as sabotage, espionage and political infiltration to undermine the EU’s stability and resilience; whereas cyberattacks have become a central element of these campaigns, exploiting the increasing digitalisation of critical sectors such as healthcare, finance and energy, causing cascading disruptions with potentially severe economic and societal consequences; whereas foreign information manipulation and interference complements these operations through the spreading of disinformation and propaganda to erode trust in democratic institutions and polarise public opinion; whereas the growing complexity, frequency and intensity of these threats underscore the pressing need to identify and implement effective solutions for safeguarding the EU’s security and resilience;

J. whereas the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine is a wake-up call for the EU, presenting an immediate threat to the European and global security order and to the security of the EU and its Member States; whereas this conflict shows the urgent need for the Member States to define a common perception of threats and demonstrate genuine solidarity with the frontline Member States;

K. whereas the EU’s ability to take decisive action in response to external threats has been repeatedly hampered by the requirement for unanimity, with certain Member States blocking or delaying critical military aid to Ukraine and hence undermining European security;

L. whereas the Trump administration is proposing a normalisation of ties with Russia, and has threatened to withdraw the US military from the European continent; whereas it appears that the US administration has ceased to be a reliable ally within NATO, which has negative repercussions for the collective territorial defence of its members;

1. Stresses the seriousness of the threats to the security of the European continent, which have reached a level unprecedented since the Second World War; expresses deep concern at the rise of geopolitical fractures, also within the West, new and renewed imperialist ambitions for domination by authoritarian powers, systemic rivalry between great powers, nationalist unilateralism, the primary and growing use of force, and violence by certain states and non-state actors in order to promote their political and economic interests or to resolve disputes;

2. Recalls that the EU is a peace project and should strive towards peace and stability while condemning aggression; underlines that, in order to achieve peace and stability, we must support Ukraine and become more resilient ourselves;

3. Believes that the war of aggression against Ukraine was part of Putin’s plan to reshape the Euro-Atlantic security architecture and that this plan has been thwarted thanks to the Ukrainian people’s heroic defence;

4. Underlines that Russian acts of sabotage against critical European infrastructure, and Russia’s manipulation of and interference in EU and NATO countries, have significantly increased; stresses that experts believe that Russia might further escalate its aggressive acts and also attack EU Member States with conventional armed forces during the coming years;

5. Deplores the fact that the President of the United States has suggested that the US may attempt to annex Greenland, which would be in breach of international law, create considerable instability for the Greenland Government and people and the whole region, further exacerbating the deterioration of relations within the Atlantic Alliance;

6. Calls, therefore, for the EU to increase its efforts to shift the trajectory of Russia’s war against Ukraine and set the conditions for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace on Ukraine’s terms; underlines that defeating Russia in Ukraine and ensuring Ukraine’s future success are the most effective and cost-efficient investments in European security for the short and medium term;

7. Urges the Member States to provide more arms and ammunition to Ukraine, in as large quantities and as quickly as possible, to enable Ukraine to liberate its territory and deter further Russian attacks;

8. Calls for making a fast and significant increase in the financing of military support for Ukraine a key and structural component of the white paper; calls on the Member States to scale up direct investments in the capacity of the Ukrainian defence industry to mass-produce essential defence products (Danish model), specifically drones, air defence systems, artillery and long-range strike capabilities; proposes the allocation of a specific multibillion euro budget to the European Defence Industry Programme’s (EDIP) Ukraine Support Instrument reserved exactly for this purpose; stresses the need to explore legal avenues for fully seizing the frozen assets of sanctioned Russian individuals and the Russian Central Bank for use as grants for Ukraine’s expenditure on its defence and resilience needs and its reconstruction, in accordance with international law; condemns the veto imposed by the Hungarian Government on the European Peace Facility (EPF), which blocks more than EUR 6 billion and renders the EPF almost useless; stresses, further, the urgent need also to consider the option of creating an alternative ad hoc arrangement for those European countries that wish to support Ukraine militarily and finance that aid jointly;

9. Demands the inclusion of a plan in the white paper that describes how the integration of the Ukrainian defence industry into the EU defence technological and industrial base (EDTIB) can be operationalised in the fastest and most efficient manner; recalls the urgency to properly finance EDIP’s Ukraine instrument; further proposes the provision of war insurance for critical EDTIB projects inside Ukraine; proposes the regular inclusion of Ukrainian Defence Ministry officials with observer status at meetings of relevant Council configurations;

10. Expects the white paper on EU defence to define a new framework and the extent to which the EU must accomplish defence readiness and preparedness, in view of the most severe military contingencies, deter potential aggressors and defend itself also to assist NATO allies that are also EU Member States to become a credible European pillar in NATO;

11. Stresses that the time has come to use the white paper process to clearly define what is meant by a true European defence union; recalls that the adoption of the Strategic Compass was only a starting point, but that its implementation remains necessary and requires an update to reflect the goals of deterrence and defence readiness;

12. Deplores the reluctance of the Council and the EU Member States when it comes to addressing deep structural challenges of the European defence industrial landscape and the lack of ambition as regards cooperation between their armed forces at EU level; calls on the Member States to join forces and support a quantum leap towards a very ambitious and comprehensive framework on defence;

13. Welcomes in principle the announcements made by the President of the Commission on 4 March 2025 regarding a ‘re-arm Europe’ initiative; stresses, however, that the planned investments should address the lack of cooperation and coordination between Member States, including measures guaranteeing full interoperability and making joint procurement the rule;

14. Urges the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR) and the Member States to use the white paper process for outlining a comprehensive framework that is composed of at least the following key components:

(a) a precise description of scenarios in which the EU and its Member States would use security and military instruments that include the latest risk and threat assessments and range from the most extreme military contingencies to crisis management abroad,

(b) elements of a military doctrine which describe in detail the military tasks related to the different scenarios, including cooperation with NATO, in particular through a more precise operationalisation and routine exercises for scenarios under Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU),

(c) revised and adapted military headline goals, closely coordinated with the NATO Defence Planning Process, and a precise description of the necessary quantity and quality of military personnel, including training requirements and key military capabilities that are fully synchronised with the new NATO Force Model as regards EU NATO countries, such as strategic enablers, but also ammunition stocks, in order to fulfil current force generation targets,

(d) proposals regarding armed forces cooperation structures that go beyond ad hoc arrangements, such as EU Battlegroups, including a strengthened Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC), multinationally crewed strategic enablers (based on the Airborne Warning and Control System – AWACS – model) at EU level and additional permanent multinational military units with sufficient capabilities to provide deterrence and defence,

(e) a description of the key parameters necessary for the establishment of an efficient and competitive single market for defence that would help Member States to reach the capability headline goals necessary for full defence readiness and equip our closest allies, such as Ukraine;

15. Underlines that the EU must adopt a holistic and horizontal approach to security and defence by taking into account the many societal and systemic challenges it faces, such as climate change; emphasises the need for an impact assessment of current and future EU policies in order to find out how they can better support EU security and defence, including through other strategic objectives of the Union, especially the transition to a green, digital and just economy;

16. States that major geopolitical shifts, amplified by the return of large-scale wars in our neighbourhood, have threatened and keep threatening the security of the EU and its citizens, that ‘business as usual’ is not an option, and that, to face the threats, the EU and its Member States must make EU-level cooperation of their armed forces and their defence industry the rule in order to create a capabilities-based EU defence union which can overcome threats and attacks against EU security;

17. Strongly believes that more substantial progress needs to be made in operationalising Article 42(7) TEU and that a plan is needed on how to operationalise this solidarity policy in the white paper with respect to the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States;

18. Insists on the need to ensure better cooperation and coordination by taking stock of the will of the EU and the UK to become closer security partners; calls strongly for the creation of a European security council to coordinate actions between like-minded countries willing to form a vanguard in European defence cooperation and integration; calls for this European security council to serve as the foundation for a new European defence union, bringing together like-minded Member States and strategic partners that share a common security vision and mutual trust;

19. Considers that current strategic documents, legislative proposals and studies such as the Strategic Compass, the European defence industrial strategy and the Niinistö report should finally inspire a concrete and comprehensive vision for the future of European defence, including specific goals, targets and roadmaps, which the white paper should constitute;

20. Calls for the EU to better link common security and defence policy (CSDP) instruments with internal security tools and to strengthen dual-use and civil-military cooperation at EU level;

21. Strongly supports the many good recommendations put forward by the Niinistö report; fully supports the report’s aim, which is ‘not to limit our level of preparedness to what is politically convenient’ but to address what is needed in order to cope with the most severe scenarios; insists on the importance of the upcoming preparedness Union strategy to put the EU on track for comprehensive preparedness, including a definition of EU-level vital societal and governmental functions, the development of EU-level preparedness baseline requirements for these functions, and ensuring the coherence of sectoral crisis plans at EU level; recommends, in particular, the Niinistö report recommendations aimed at empowering citizens to make societal resilience work, inspired by the Finnish concept of total defence;

22. Calls for the EU to develop an EU risk assessment to identify cross-sectoral threats and the risks facing the EU as a whole, and supports the embedding of the ‘preparedness by design’ principle across the EU; insists on the need to develop a mandatory ‘security and preparedness check’ for future impact assessments and ‘stress-tests’ for current legislation as proposed by Niinistö; believes that there is a need to assess whether there are specific challenges that undermine the timely completion of projects identified as critical for effective military deterrence and the rapid arrival of capabilities to the eastern flank for military contingency;

23. Invites the Commission and the Member States to explore the feasibility of an EU preparedness act to align EU and national efforts when possible;

24. Calls for the EU and the Member States to set up and conduct an EU comprehensive preparedness exercise to test high-level decision-making and operational coordination;

25. Calls for the CSDP to be guided by a human security approach and committed to the Women, Peace and Security Agenda; underlines the importance of other multilateral frameworks that strive to build a peaceful and stable future;

26. Calls on the Member States to push for the deletion of the unanimity rule in foreign and security policy in the Council; asks for an amendment to Article 46(6) TEU to allow for qualified majority voting instead of unanimity in the management of permanent structured cooperation, with the exception of decisions leading to the creation of military missions or operations with an executive mandate under the CSDP, which must remain under unanimity;

27. Proposes the strengthening of Parliament’s oversight and scrutiny role in line with the EU expanding its role in defence, including via delegated acts for the work programmes of the current and future defence industrial programmes and instruments that would allow for their implementation to be scrutinised, in particular the priorities set by the Commission concerning projects on priority capabilities; calls for a Parliament representative to be appointed to the new defence industrial readiness board proposed in EDIP, where currently none is provided for;

28. Believes that the EU must acquire a clear understanding of what the actual gap is between the capability targets and defence capabilities of the Member States; stresses the need to ramp up defence industry production, as well as to have ever-ready production units to respond to foreign attacks or specific needs of its strategic partners;

29. Considers regular threat analyses to be an absolute necessity and proposes synchronising their planning cycle with similar regular threat analyses within NATO and by key non-NATO partners;

30. Reiterates its call to strengthen EU-NATO cooperation in order to build a more European NATO, particularly by fully aligning the EU’s Strategic Compass and NATO’s strategic concept, the EU’s Capability Development Plan and NATO’s Defence Planning Process capability targets, except for areas where there are clear special interests for the EU only; proposes the appointment of a permanent EU representative to NATO, including to the military committee on information exchange and the respective military operations;

31. Calls for the EU to address the critical defence capability gaps and shortfalls and focus efforts on specific projects of common European interest that are too expensive for a single Member State to procure, in particular strategic enablers, but also large stockpiles of critical equipment, in order to provide genuine EU added value, which could most efficiently be jointly procured and managed by an EU framework through a special off-budget instrument; proposes, in particular, the establishment of the following capabilities:

(a) integrated air defence and long-range strike systems, optimally by coordinating the ongoing development of the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI) with the European Long Range Strike Approach (ELSA),

(b) suppression of enemy air defences,

(c) multi-type drone force,

(d) electronic warfare,

(e) defensive and offensive cyber systems,

(f) AWACS, aerial refuelling and long-range transport,

(g) Command, control, communications and computers (C4) and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities and space assets critical for early warning, navigation, observation and communication,

(h) Main Ground Combat System (MGCS),

(i) Future Combat Aircraft System (FCAS);

32. Urges the EU and the Member States to move from a ‘flow’ approach to a ‘stock’ approach, with mandatory targets for critical defence equipment; points to the need to ensure the socially and environmentally sustainable provision of relevant raw materials and to implement policies to close gaps in production and the labour market; stresses the urgent need to make defence production and stocking of ammunition and other products more security-relevant by developing plans on how to have a more decentralised and resilient network and joint stocks building on ‘readiness pools’ in regions facing a higher threat level and the possibility of large-scale conventional warfare;

33. Calls for the EU to urgently adapt its tools to new realities by designing an administrative capacity to move much faster when faced with wars or other large-scale crises; stresses that this can be done by designing and putting in place binding rules, which can be triggered in emergency situations to accelerate administrative and legal procedures, and taking measures in the input side of the supply chain, for the quick production and delivery of military goods, or the construction of infrastructure projects for European mobility, identified as critical for defence;

34. Urges the EU to take immediate action to pool resources and expertise in the field of cybersecurity, recognising that individual Member States face limited capabilities in this domain; strongly advocates for the development of a unified European approach to cyber forces; further insists on the swift creation of joint European cyber capabilities to effectively address the common challenges faced by all Member States in the rapidly evolving threat landscape, thereby strengthening the EU’s collective resilience and strategic autonomy in the digital realm;

35. Calls for the EU to use the white paper to describe a plan that helps to remove unnecessary national regulatory obstacles that slow down military mobility without undermining public security; considers that the definition of military mobility should apply to dual-use infrastructures that cover all logistical aspects of mobility, and that for dual-use projects, adequate criteria should be properly applied in terms of funding provisions, in particular at EU level; stresses the need for significant investments in military mobility infrastructures to enhance cargo airlift capabilities, camps, depots, ports, air, sea and rail platforms, railway lines, railroad terminals, waterways, roads and bridges;

36. Reiterates its full support for the RDC to achieve full operational capability at the latest by mid-2025, with at least 5 000 troops available for rescue and evacuation tasks, initial entry and stabilisation operations or temporary reinforcement of missions; proposes upgrading the RDC by transforming it into a permanent multinational force with its own strategic enablers and command and control, learning from the failed experience of the ad hoc EU Battlegroups;

37. Calls on the VP/HR to launch a discussion with Member States in order to create additional permanent multinational units to respond to the changed threat landscape for the EU since the decision to create the RDC, especially in the light of Trump’s recent rapprochement towards Putin and comments regarding Greenland, which have increased the need for effective European deterrence and defence in line with the most extreme military contingencies;

38. Proposes strengthening the current Eurocorps and making it a multinational corps with its own strategic enablers and command and control to which national brigades can be permanently attached with standardised, jointly procured equipment; stresses that such a multinational European corps can enable smaller Member States to fulfil their current force-generation targets, provide industry with aggregate demand through standardised, large-scale equipment orders and provide the EU with its own capability focused on deterrence and defence, including for candidate countries;

39. Proposes the joint creation of crewed and owned strategic enablers at EU level, based on the model of NATO’s AWACS, which are too expensive for individual Member States and important for the security of the EU as a whole;

40. Calls for the European Air Transport Command to be transformed into an ‘EU crisis-response air fleet’ comprising military transport aircraft held at European level and made available to Member States for deployments of equipment or troops, emergency evacuations or civil security missions;

41. Reiterates its call for the Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) to benefit from adequate premises, staff, enhanced planning, command and control, and effective communication and information systems;

42. Calls for a more ambitious concept for military training and relevant planning, command and control elements at EU level to be part of the white paper action plan, such as a fully equipped and well-staffed MPCC; believes that the EU must expand the training of Ukrainian forces in line with Ukrainian needs to enable a higher level of operational coordination between units, allow for the most effective force generation possible, and create conditions for European armed forces to learn lessons from them;

43. Urges the EU Member States to decide on a united and clear medium- and long-term vision for the European defence industry aimed at helping to meet the capability headline goals;

44. Stresses the urgent need to change the way defence industrial programmes are implemented across the EU; believes that it is of crucial importance to synchronise their work programmes with the revised headline goals in order to be able to focus on the most urgent and militarily important capability gaps; underlines the importance of overcoming a very broad distribution of scarce financial resources and the need to prevent any further ‘dual sourcing’ or similar duplications at EU level that would add to a high amount of duplications in Europe and to the low efficiency rate of the defence industrial base, which is still characterised by fragmentation;

45. Stresses that capabilities and resources must be increased, and that the fragmentation of the defence market must be overcome via the creation of a single market for defence, where binding common rules apply guaranteeing fair competition and full interoperability of defence products; shares the view contained in Mario Draghi’s report on the future of European competitiveness that the EU must urgently boost competitiveness in the sector by various means, such as mergers (inspired by best practice, such as that of Airbus), and more competition between traditionally nationally entrenched defence firms, and decide on incentives directed towards the EU defence industry for sufficiently large public and private investments in security and defence;

46. Believes that the white paper should build on the European defence industrial strategy (EDIS), in particular EDIP, and also develop a concept for a wartime economic cooperation contingency plan to prepare for mutual support in case of large-scale security crises, and deepen wartime economic communication to provide early warnings of hard, hybrid and cyber threats;

47. Stresses that a single European defence market is a priority, as fragmentation and a lack of competitiveness hamper the capacity of the EU to assume more responsibility as a security provider; deplores the fact that neither the EU defence industrial programmes nor the increasing national defence budgets have led to a surge in EU-level defence industrial cooperation that would have allowed Member States to reach their own 2007 cooperation targets as set in the European Defence Agency (EDA) framework; recalls the persistent low levels of European collaboration since 24 February 2022, which, for research and development (R&D), were 14 % in 2022 and 6 % in 2023, and for joint procurement 18 % in 2023, while the EDA was unable to provide data for 2023 (but stressed that there was ‘a temporary slowdown’); stresses the urgent need to analyse the reasons for the unwillingness of Member States to use EU-level cooperation and see it as the main tool for defence investment;

48. Strongly supports the idea to make EU-level cooperation the rule in the European defence industrial sector and commit to concrete numerical targets for cooperation as presented in EDIS, which focus in particular on joint procurement (at least 40 % by 2030), intra-EU trade (at least 35 % by 2030), and procurement of EU-made defence products (at least 50 % by 2030 and 60 % by 2035);

49. Urges the Commission and the Council to address the dual challenge of joint military equipment production and its effective utilisation across Member States; calls for a comprehensive strategy to guarantee increased interoperability through the promotion of agreed civil and military standards, such as NATO standardisation agreements, within EU defence industrial programmes; demands a commitment to tying the funding of current and future instruments to the standardisation of and convergence on certification by NATO allies and to make current standards more precise; calls on the Commission to present concrete plans to overcome interoperability obstacles and ensure the efficient utilisation of jointly produced equipment by all participating Member States;

50. Insists on the importance of European defence projects of common interest as presented in EDIP, which are critical to European defence readiness and preparedness; believes that these should support the industrial and technological capacities that underpin common capability priorities and that cannot be implemented alone, such as strategic enablers; proposes that, based on the capabilities’ headline goals, the Commissioner for Defence create a clear ‘output plan’ listing relevant quantified targets not just for strategic enablers but also for the most critical large-scale equipment needs, such as MGCS, FCAS and ESSI and ELSA, which would then be jointly procured and maintained throughout the life cycle of the product in order to achieve economies of scale and interoperability in the most effective and fastest way;

51. Believes that a competitive and resilient European defence industry will also lead to a restructuring of the industrial landscape, including through mergers, which would also reduce the number of parallel programmes that waste financial resources, as well as a better regional distribution of production sites; considers that our defence policies should encourage the growth of EU centres of excellence, also according to the criteria of decentralisation, security and resilience; stresses the need to massively boost start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs in the sector as a priority and as a structural element of the section of the white paper pertaining to the single market for defence; stresses that for well-established or systemic actors in the defence sector, public investment should be accompanied by additional safeguards to ensure that public money is reinvested and not used for the purpose of generating profits for their shareholders, such as by windfall profit taxes;

52. Proposes to create European regional EDTIB clusters uniting research, development, production and maintenance facilities to create regional economies of scale and focus areas of technological specialisation; calls for these clusters to be strategically spread throughout the EU to allow for continued manufacturing in times of crisis and to more evenly distribute the economic opportunities for SMEs and Member States with relatively small defence industries; calls for these clusters to be aligned with EDIP’s proposal for the Structure for European Armament Programme;

53. Calls for more coherence in support of companies by reducing unnecessary administrative burdens and cutting red tape, and ensuring much easier access for small- and mid-cap companies within the defence sector;

54. Calls for a comprehensive strategy to leverage current instruments such as the Defence Equity Facility and new initiatives such as EDIP’s Fund to Accelerate Defence Supply Chain Transformation; demands concrete commitments to increase the amount of funding per SME while ensuring transparency and accountability; requests the implementation of robust monitoring mechanisms to ensure that funds drive innovation and competitiveness among SMEs without distorting the market; demands, further, regular reporting on the impact and effectiveness of these financial instruments in supporting start-ups and SMEs in the defence industry and dual-use sector;

55. Calls on the Commission to design a successor to the European Defence Fund (EDF) that supports common research and innovation all along the supply chain and lay the conditions to address technological challenges and provide European solutions to key capabilities gaps; calls for the establishment of a Commission agency with a specific focus on R&D with dual-use potential, taking inspiration from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; stresses the need to put a strong emphasis on EU-level support for the most disruptive and innovative technology via the creation of an accelerator hub for researching, developing and testing new breakthrough defence technologies, which would also contribute to economic competitiveness, bringing together industry, governments and the expert community; underlines that this organisation should nurture a risk-taking culture and be highly flexible by design; proposes, as a first step, that funding allocation should focus on a limited number of critical projects, including decarbonised defence and novel deterrence capabilities;

56. Calls for the strengthening of energy resilience and the climate and environmental transition dimension under the successor to the EDF, and for the climate-proofing and decarbonisation (covering both adaptation and mitigation) of EU defence by design and across the five dimensions: operational, capability planning and development, multi-stakeholder engagement, governance, and R&D, for the benefit of the performance of military capabilities, the resilience of armed forces, and thus the competitiveness of the EDTIB;

57. Is deeply convinced that the EU-level instruments should prioritise and massively increase support for SMEs and start-ups in the dual-use and defence sector; stresses the need to support SMEs and start-ups in bringing successfully tested prototypes to the market, including the scaling up of production; underlines the need to bridge the current funding gap as regards these important steps that would strengthen the EDTIB, including in close cooperation with the Ukrainian technological and defence industrial base;

58. Insists on the need to remove barriers to market entry for defence products across the EU by reviewing the directives on the transfer of defence-related products and defence procurement; calls on the Commission to propose actions for better market access, smoother cross-border cooperation and increased security of supply, including by harmonising national export policies;

59. Stresses the need to develop an effective EU-level armaments policy that includes the establishment of a functioning and effective external trade dimension that aims to support partners that face threats from aggressive authoritarian regimes and prevents arms deliveries to undemocratic aggressive regimes and regimes that make illegal use of them as assessed under the relevant international human rights and humanitarian law, in line with the current eight criteria under the Council Common Position on arms exports[2]; stresses the need to overcome the very narrow and national interpretation of Article 346 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) in this respect;

60. Invites the Member States to actively participate in a priority-ordering mechanism for defence production which builds on security and defence capability mapping to help prioritise orders, contracts and the recruitment of employees in emergency situations;

61. Strongly believes that a European preference must be the cornerstone of EU policies related to the European defence market, as a strategic imperative aimed at protecting European know-how; underlines that the European preference principle must be reflected in EU defence regulations in clear and unambiguous eligibility criteria; underlines, however, that exceptions for emergency military contingencies and projects critical for ensuring defence readiness should be built into these criteria;

62. Calls for a crisis response instrument for securing European sovereignty based on the model of the US Defense Production Act, so that the EU has a tool which can be activated to react quickly to emergency wartime or crisis needs; calls for such a tool to include the following key components:

(a) joint procurement of specific defence products,

(b) prioritising the provision of critical materials, and prioritising orders, for specific supply chains, such as artillery munitions,

(c) fast-tracking administrative and legal procedures for moving military equipment and troops, and where possible the construction of (infrastructure) projects critical for military mobility or other military readiness priority areas, while avoiding the circumvention of environmental protection provisions and building in necessary safeguards;

63. Deplores the lack of willingness by Member States to invest in EU-level cooperation and urges them to reach the EU objectives on security and defence; highlights the fact that the cost of non-preparedness for the most extreme military contingencies would be higher than the cost of decisive EU preparedness; recalls that aggregate EU defence spending is insufficient and that very little national defence spending is coordinated or even pooled with other Member States or invested in European collaborative projects; calls for the EU and the Member States to work and agree on concrete measures and means for short- to long-term public and private investment;

64. Notes that, according to the Commission President, the defence spending gap currently stands at EUR 500 billion for the next decade, but that, if the EU needs to develop its own military capabilities, experts estimate that this amount will have to rise significantly; underlines that the EU budget alone cannot fill the gap, but has an important role to play;

65. Underlines that increases in defence investment should not compete with other public investment priorities, including social expenditure, territorial cohesion and climate transition, which are all relevant to our European security; reiterates that the most effective way to maintain such priorities is to release fresh investment for defence rather than repurpose already earmarked funding; further recalls that financing orientations should be anchored in a whole-of-society approach to resilience and therefore need to be broadly supported by European citizens, and that this support needs to be sustainable in the long term;

66. Opposes any proposal aimed at repurposing cohesion policy funds from their long-term objectives and recalls that only strengthening Europe’s social and economic fabric and reducing territorial disparities will contribute to the balanced development and stability of all EU regions, and will ultimately reinforce the EU’s ability to defend itself against disinformation and foreign influence;

67. Supports the Commission President’s announcement to create a new EU financial instrument to assist Member States in increasing their defence spending through loans backed by the EU budget; takes note of the intention to establish such a new instrument under Article 122 TFEU; recalls that while the EU Recovery Instrument, which allocated borrowed funds to various EU programmes, was established by a Council regulation under Article 122 TFEU, various EU programmes to which the resources were allocated, including the Recovery and Resilience Facility, were adopted through ‘codecision’, relying on Article 175 TFEU; calls on the Commission to adopt a similar legal structure, respecting the ordinary legislative procedure and ensuring the democratic legitimacy of any new EU financing instrument for defence;

68. Welcomes the further extension of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group’s eligibility criteria to dual-use goods; welcomes the EIB Group’s 2022 Strategic European Security Initiative aimed at supporting innovation in dual-use technology; stresses that EIB investments should focus on innovative projects, but not expendable products such as ammunition; stresses that greater EIB investment in the defence sector can encourage commercial banks’ investment in the sector; calls on the EIB Group to review the impact of the extension of its new dual-use goods policy and insists that any further extension of lending in the sector should only take place if it has no negative impact on the overall financing costs of the bank or its investment pipeline, or on the contribution to financing the investment needed for enabling the EU to reach its climate goals;

69. Considers that, complementing joint debt, further defence lending should be dealt with in a separate bank, as investment in defence cannot in principle be considered an environmental, social and governance investment; calls, therefore, on the Commission and the Member States to establish, as a matter of urgency, a new defence bank modelled on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development that could address the global perspective of securing defence lending, while protecting other investment and allowing for allies to join;

70. Takes note of the Commission President’s announcement on ‘activating the escape clause for defence investments’; underlines that, in view of other pressing policy priorities, the escape clause must be applied in a way that ensures that increases in defence expenditure do not lead to cuts in other areas and is conditional on being spent on developing common EU projects, including dual-use infrastructure such as railways, satellite systems and resilient power grids;

71. Stresses that the current political context demonstrates that the recently adopted EU economic governance framework deprives governments of the financial resources needed to respond to current and new challenges; underlines that prioritising one policy area over another exacerbates rather than mitigates the multiple crises the EU is facing; calls for a review of the EU fiscal rules framework that would provide the long-term funding certainty required for investment in promoting the just transition, expanding European defence production capabilities and developing dual-use infrastructure, thereby underpinning a truly coordinated EU approach to investment policy;

72. Insists that urgent needs cannot wait for the next multiannual financial framework (MMF); believes that, as long as Member States refuse to allocate more resources to a higher overall EU budget, including the creation of new own resources, and given the unanimity requirement to change both the MMF Regulation[3] and the Council’s Own-Resources Decision[4], and given the urgency, solutions for alternative funding must be considered without delay, including:

(a) the urgent launch of a discussion with a view to establishing another off-budget financial facility[5] which would sufficiently pool and Europeanise parts of national defence budgets at EU level and address the entire life cycle of military capabilities, from collaborative R&D and joint procurement to joint maintenance, training and security of supply, and which is, like the current off-budget EPF, open to non-EU countries such as Norway and the UK; stresses therefore the need to improve decision-making and oversight procedures compared to the current EPF governance model,

(b) the issuance of EU risk guarantees by the Commission to lower interest rates for participants in EU-level projects identified as critical for defence readiness,

(c) a new EU debt programme along the lines of the NextGenerationEU backed by genuine own resources to repay the borrowed funds,

(d) the creation of new genuine EU own resources to create additional revenue flows to finance security- and defence-related investments at EU level,

(e) greater mobilisation of equity and private capital; reiterates therefore its call for more private investment in EU defence,

(f) the creation of specific financial products so that private banks invest more in the defence sector,

(g) the development of emergency procedures for projects established in response to major crises or wars;

73. Believes that the next MFF should have a greater allocation of funds for common security and be more flexible in order to react to unforeseen crises and emergencies;

74. Welcomes the proposals made in the recent Niinistö report as regards the financing of European defence; supports the setting up of a defending Europe facility and a securing Europe facility; equally welcomes and supports the proposal to establish an investment guarantee programme based on the model of InvestEU with open architecture to trigger private sector investment and to issue a ‘European preparedness bond standard’;

75. Insists that robust mechanisms be implemented to ensure the efficient use of scarce EU budget resources and prevent any duplication of efforts in defence projects; requests a comprehensive review of current oversight procedures and the development of a transparent framework for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of EU-funded defence initiatives;

76. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commissioner for Defence and Space, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Council and the Commission.