This Fund must allow for the co-funding by the EU of industrial projects common to several countries. But the amount finally allocated is short of the initial ambitions.
The european Fund for the defense (EDF) will be allocated 7 billion euros for the period 2021-2027. This is significantly less than originally planned, according to the conclusions of the european summit on Tuesday, while the european Union (EU) nourishes great designs for its defence industries.
This multi-year budget the european Commission adopted Tuesday by the heads of State and government is expressed in constant euros, the price in 2018. However, the 13 billion euros that aim was initially the european Commission were in current euros and correspond to 11 billion euros at constant prices in 2018, said a responsible person within the european Commission. The budget finally allocated to the fund for european defence is thus a little less than two thirds than what had been initially presented to the Commission.
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The Fund, which should allow co-financing by the EU of industrial projects common to several countries, aims to “promote the competitiveness, efficiency and the innovative capacity of the industrial and technological base of european defence, by supporting co-operation actions and cross-border cooperation throughout the Union, at every stage of the manufacturing cycle of the products and technologies of defence”.
“We have reached a new stage”
Wanted by France, the FED was not unanimous, and its staffing has been the subject of intense negotiations to finish by dropping back to 7 billion on the 1074 billion eu budget for the period 2021-2027. At the end of may, the Defense ministers of the German, French, Spanish and Italian had written to the head of european diplomacy Josep Borrell to remember the need for a FED ambitious, judging it to be “essential to finance and to enhance research and development capabilities that will strengthen our ability to cope with multiple crises and global threats”.
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“of Course, France, at the forefront of the construction of a Europe of strong defence, wished that the defence budget is larger. Nevertheless, we have reached a new stage, it is as well that we advance”, has welcomed on Twitter the French minister of the Armies of Florence Parly, recalling that the EU budget had “now a line dedicated to the defense. Never seen that before”.
The budget allotted to the space itself will be of 13.3 billion euros (constant-2018) for the period 2021-2027. The initial project was of 16 billion current euros, or about $ 14 billion of constant euros of 2018, according to the person responsible within the Commission. “There has been no cut on the space at the top,” which has just been completed, the $ 13.3 billion already on the table earlier, he pleaded. Of this amount, $ 8 billion will be spent on the european system of satellite navigation Galileo and 4.8 billion in the program of Earth observation Copernicus.
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