Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Added16. Strongly condemns the role that North Korea plays in aiding Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine through the training of North Korean troops and their deployment to Russia to directly participate in the war or support the Russian Armed Forces; also condemns, in the strongest possible terms, North Korea’s supply of military equipment and weaponry actively deployed on the battlefield, and its involvement in sanctions evasion; considers North Korea’s actions a blatant violation of international norms and warns of the dangerous and significant risk of escalation that they pose to Europe and the broader international community; underlines, with serious concern, the risk that North Korea is using the battlefield in Ukraine as a platform to study advanced combat tactics, including drone warfare, with the intention of applying these techniques in potential future conflicts; expresses its outrage at the fact that several other rogue states are actively supporting Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, including Iran, among others; condemns, in this regard, Iran’s transfer of Shahed drones, ammunition and ballistic missiles to Russia, heightening the risk of potential military intervention by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine; firmly believes that the EU and the international community must firmly respond to this with a combination of diplomatic, military and economic measures, and, most importantly, by providing increased support to Ukraine to strengthen its defence against this alliance of rogue states that Russia has built up; underlines the importance of closely liaising with the 2025-2029 US Administration in this regard;

Added17. Stresses the importance of the EPF, which has been instrumental in supporting the provision of military capabilities and training to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, while facilitating coordination for all stakeholders through the clearing house mechanism within the EU Military Staff; welcomes the establishment of the dedicated Ukraine Assistance Fund under the EPF and calls for an increase in financial resources for military assistance to Ukraine through this instrument, while also providing a medium-term financial perspective; urges the Hungarian Government to immediately cease its efforts to hinder the EU’s actions in support of Ukraine and to lift its veto on the extension of the EU’s sanctions renewal period and the EPF military support to Ukraine, including the agreed reimbursement to EU Member States for the military aid they have delivered; expresses its deep concern that the veto by the Hungarian Government has blocked the opening of a new tranche of expenditure to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces and has prevented the release of EUR 6.6 billion in partial reimbursement to the EU Member States providing military support to Ukraine; urges the Council and the VP/HR to find innovative solutions capable of lifting these blockages and offsetting these funding cuts; encourages the Member States to develop scenario-based and predictable inventories of military capabilities that can be provided under the EPF to ensure that the short-term provision of capabilities is rapidly sourced from Member States and delivered without delay, and that the long-term provision of capabilities that assist Ukraine in restoring deterrence is provided in a foreseeable time frame, in coordination with non-EU countries, when necessary; appreciates that all military assistance and weapon deliveries under the EPF have been in full compliance with the EU Common Position on arms exports, international human rights law and humanitarian law, while ensuring adequate transparency and accountability;

Added18. Highlights the outcome of the NATO Washington Summit, which reaffirmed that Ukraine’s future is in NATO and that the alliance supports Ukraine’s right to choose its own security arrangements and decide its own future, free from outside interference; concurs that both the EU and NATO have demonstrated political unity in solidarity with and commitment to supporting Ukraine; reiterates its belief that Ukraine is on an irreversible path to NATO membership; welcomes the allies’ pledge of long-term security assistance for the provision of military equipment, assistance and training for Ukraine; recognises the crucial role of NATO, EU-NATO cooperation and NATO allies such as the US and the UK, in coordinating efforts to support Ukraine militarily not only through the supply of weapons, ammunition and equipment, but also intelligence and data;

Added19. Welcomes the Council’s decision of 21 May 2024, ensuring that the net profits stemming from extraordinary revenues generated by immobilised Russian Central Bank (RCB) assets in the EU, as a result of the implementation of the EU restrictive measures, are used for further military support to Ukraine, as well as its defence industry capacities and reconstruction; also welcomes the agreement reached with the Council, which led to the Council’s decision of 23 October 2024 to adopt a financial assistance package, including an exceptional macro-financial assistance loan of up to EUR 35 billion and the establishment of a Ukraine Loan Cooperation Mechanism that will use contributions raised from the profits of immobilised RCB assets and support Ukraine in repaying loans of up to EUR 45 billion from the EU and its G7 partners; recalls, however, that the mobilisation of this financial assistance will be at the expense of the sum earmarked for EU military support via the Ukraine Facility, which will now only benefit from a maximum of 15 % of the profits from the immobilised RCB assets;

Added20. Welcomes the achievements of the EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM), which, to date, has trained more than 70 000 Ukrainian soldiers on EU territory, thereby making the EU the biggest provider of military training to Ukraine and significantly contributing to enhancing the military capability of the Ukrainian Armed Forces; takes note of the new goal of training 75 000 Ukrainian soldiers by the end of winter 2024/2025; welcomes the Council’s decision of 8 November 2024 to extend the mandate of the mission for two years; calls for EUMAM’s financial, logistical and human resources to be expanded and adapted to the evolving military training needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including in the air and maritime defence domains, as well as to the requested long-term reform efforts in line with the joint security commitments between the EU and Ukraine; welcomes the Member States’ strong participation in EUMAM, which can be described as a template for future military training missions, advancing deterrence by significantly enhancing interoperability between Member States and partners, and calls on the Member States to demonstrate similar ambition and contributions to other current and future CSDP missions and operations; emphasises that EUMAM should also act as a platform for the exchange of best practices to ensure that European forces also benefit from the lessons learnt on the battlefield by the Ukrainian Armed Forces; welcomes the launch of the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), announced at the NATO Washington Summit, which coordinates the provision of military training and equipment for Ukraine by NATO allies and partners and provides logistical support; stresses the importance of close coordination between EUMAM and NSATU;

Added21. Commends the work of the European Union Advisory Mission Ukraine (EUAM) in implementing, in difficult conditions, its newly reinforced mandate; calls for the EU to ensure that EUAM can operate with the adequate financial, logistical and expert personnel to meet Ukraine’s needs, and welcomes the participation of non-EU countries in this regard; stresses the importance of EUAM and its role as the largest EU footprint on the ground, providing strategic advice to Ukraine’s national and state security authorities; highlights EUAM’s key tasks in combating organised and cross-border crimes, restoring public services in liberated territories and supporting the investigation and prosecution of international crimes, building on EUAM’s presence and expertise;

Added22. Stresses the importance of cooperation with and the gradual integration of the Ukrainian defence industry into the EU’s defence technological and industrial base (EDTIB) and, to this end, calls for Ukraine’s defence to be fully taken into account in the preparation of the Commission’s new legislative initiatives aimed at strengthening the EDTIB; stresses that concrete steps should be taken towards Ukraine’s integration into EU defence policies and programmes during Ukraine’s EU accession process, including by adapting the Ukrainian Armed Forces to EU capability requirements and involving them in cross-border defence industrial and technological cooperation projects and programmes; welcomes, in this respect, the opening of the EU Defence Innovation Office in Ukraine to identify Ukrainian needs and capacities in defence innovation, facilitate joint initiatives and promote cross-border cooperation between EU and Ukrainian defence industry stakeholders, and to be a focal point for Ukrainian partners, as well as a coordination and information hub; welcomes the ongoing initiatives of several EU Member States to deepen cooperation with Ukraine in the field of defence research and industrial production, and calls for further use of Ukraine’s innovative defence potential to develop weapons and ammunition and to accelerate their production in close cooperation with the EU and other Western partners, using available support mechanisms; calls on the military industries of EU Member States to honour their commitment to establish military production on Ukrainian territory;

Added23. Emphasises the need to strengthen demining capabilities within Ukraine to address the widespread presence of unexploded ordnance and landmines, as well as to demine Ukraine’s seawaters in the Black Sea; advocates the allocation of dedicated resources to support comprehensive demining training, including advanced detection and disposal techniques; notes that enhanced demining capacity will not only facilitate safer military operations, but also support the recovery and safety of civilian areas affected by the war;

Joining forces to increase defence capabilities

Change 7

Removed9. Welcomes the vision set out in the European Defence Industrial Strategy accompanied by the Commission’s proposal for establishing the European defence industry programme; supports the objective of strengthening EU defence industrial preparedness to further enable Member States to identify and discuss joint defence programming and procurement, as well as European defence projects of common interest;

Added24. Welcomes the ambition set out in the EDIS to achieve the defence readiness of the EU and its Member States and to boost the EDTIB; considers the Commission’s proposal to establish a European defence industry programme (EDIP) vital in that regard; supports the objectives of strengthening EU defence industrial preparedness, improving joint defence planning and further facilitating joint procurement by the Member States in line with the priorities set out in the capability development plan (CDP) and the areas for cooperation identified in the coordinated annual review on defence in order to launch European defence projects of common interest, in particular in strategic capability areas, such as air and missile defence, as well as to ensure security of supply and access to critical raw materials and to prevent shortages in defence production; strongly supports the idea of predominantly using EU-level cooperation in the European defence industrial sector, and supports the concrete quantified targets for cooperation presented in the EDIS, which focus in particular on joint procurement, specifically, inviting the Member States to procure at least 40 % of defence equipment in a collaborative manner by 2030, to ensure that, by 2030, the value of intra-EU defence trade represents at least 35 % of the value of the EU defence market, and to procure at least 50 % of their defence investments within the EU by 2030 and 60 % by 2035;

Removed10. Highlights the need to overcome the fragmentation of the EU’s internal market for defence products, as it leads to unnecessary duplications and the multiplication of inefficiencies in defence spending; calls on the Commission to present proposals to complete the EU internal market for defence, based, in particular, on an assessment of EU rules for defence procurement and transfer of defence-related products, and on the identification and analysis of limitations and loopholes in the current legal framework;

Added25. Highlights the importance of the permanent structured cooperation (PESCO) for improving and harmonising the EU’s defence capabilities; notes again, with regret, that the Member States continue not to make full use of the PESCO framework and that tangible results within the currently 66 ongoing projects remain limited; further notes with regret the lack of information provided to Parliament about the reasons for the closure of six projects and their possible results; points out that the participating Member States agreed to 20 binding commitments in order to fulfil the EU’s ambition in defence; considers it necessary to conduct a thorough review of PESCO projects with regard to results and prospects, with a view to streamlining the current set of projects to a small set of priority projects while closing projects that lack sufficient progress; suggests establishing a priority scheme within PESCO in order to effectively address the identified capability gaps and priorities;

Removed11. Stresses the importance of ensuring a balanced effort between strengthening existing EU armament industrial capabilities in the short and medium-term, and supporting research and development for new and innovative military equipment and armament tailored to the needs of the armed forces of the Member States;

Added26. Welcomes the Commission’s proposal for an EDIP; notes with concern the assessment of the European Court of Auditors that the financial envelope of the EDIP is insufficient given its objectives, and therefore reiterates its call to ensure the required funding for defence; stresses that substantial budgetary efforts will be necessary for the EDIP to have a significant effect on military support for Ukraine, the development of a genuine EU defence capability and a competitive EDTIB; welcomes the 2023 revision of the CDP; regrets the limited progress made on capability development since the adoption of the first CDP in 2008; calls on the Member States to significantly increase joint efforts to achieve timely substantial progress by making full and coherent use of EU instruments, including the European Defence Fund (EDF), PESCO and the coordinated annual review on defence, as well as the instruments put forward in the EDIP proposal;

RemovedA new Strategic Compass: promoting a common strategic vision and coherence, and improving EU decision-making on defence issues within the EU institutional framework

Added27. Welcomes the joint efforts undertaken thus far to strengthen the EU’s defence readiness through measures reinforcing and supporting the adaptation of the EDTIB, notably through the EDIRPA and ASAP regulations, and calls for their swift implementation; regrets that the financial envelope of EDIRPA remains limited and points out that the role of ASAP in relation to the ambition of supplying Ukraine with one million pieces of ammunition was restrained by the Council’s objection to its regulatory elements;

Added28. Welcomes the efforts and investments made thus far by companies of the EDTIB to reinforce industrial capacity, including with the support of EU instruments; highlights that further and lasting reinforcement of the EDTIB’s capacity requires first and foremost orders by the Member States, which should be conducted jointly in order to ensure the Union’s defence readiness, improve interoperability between Member States’ armed forces and achieve economies of scale, thus making the most of EU taxpayers’ money; calls, accordingly, on the Member States to intensify joint procurement efforts in line with the capability gaps identified in the Defence Investment Gaps Analysis and the capability priorities of the CDP; underlines that effective joint procurement with regard to development projects, especially in the framework of the EDF, requires a joint definition of the military requirements of the respective systems in order to achieve adequate economies of scale; calls on the Commission, in this regard, to draw on the EU Military Committee’s expertise to produce such a joint definition in order to ensure military coherence at the industrial level; calls on the Member States to engage in joint procurement with a view to establishing pan-European value chains by distributing production throughout the Union and thereby increasing the economic attractiveness of joint procurement, while building strategic redundancies into production capacities for greater resilience in the event of an armed conflict; further calls on the Member States and the Commission to aim for a further strengthening of joint procurement mechanisms and sufficient coordination by the European Defence Agency;

Added29. Underlines the need to further support the transition of development projects to marketable solutions and welcomes the provision in the EDIP proposal in that regard; deplores the unnecessary and dysfunctional duplication of efforts with regard to the projects on the future main battle tank and the hypersonic interceptor; voices its concern that such duplications counteract the ambition laid out in the EDIS to procure 60 % from the EDTIB by 2035, as scattered resources will extend the time required to achieve marketable solutions, thus most likely leading to procurement from the United States; regrets, similarly, the mounting delays in essential capability projects, notably the Franco-German project on the Main Ground Combat System and the Franco-German-Spanish project on the Future Combat Air System, which also entail the risk of the future procurement of US solutions; stresses that all possible synergies with the EDF should be used, while avoiding the duplication of efforts;

Added30. Stresses the need to ensure the coherence of output between respective EU and NATO capability development planning processes; calls for the interoperability of military equipment from EU Member States and NATO Allies to be improved and for industrial cooperation to be fostered by ensuring that future EU legal standards for defence products components and ammunition are based on the NATO standards; stresses that European defence projects of common interest, as defined in the EDIP proposal, should be implemented in close coordination with NATO;

Added31. Highlights the vital necessity of overcoming the fragmentation of the EU’s defence industrial landscape and of finally achieving the full implementation of the EU’s internal market for defence products, as the current structure leads to unnecessary duplications and the multiplication of inefficiencies in defence investments and their use, and structurally hampers the strengthening of defence readiness; is concerned that the internal market for defence products is still undermined by insufficiently harmonised application of its rules by the Member States and by disproportionate use of the exemption provided for in Article 346 TFEU; endorses the call for the creation of a true single market for defence products and services, as also presented in Mr Niinistö’s report; emphasises the need for a newly updated and effective regulatory framework aimed at reducing barriers for market entry for defence products, enabling EU defence industrial consolidation and permitting EU companies to fully exploit business potential, encouraging innovation and more and smoother cross-border as well as civil and military cooperation, boosting production, increasing security of supply and ensuring smarter and more efficient public investments in the EDTIB; underlines, at the same time, the importance of maintaining fruitful competition between different competitors and of avoiding oligopolies in which individual providers can freely determine the prices and availability of defence goods; calls on the Commission to present proposals to complete the EU internal market for defence, based, in particular, on an assessment of EU rules for defence procurement and transfer of defence-related products, and on the identification and analysis of limitations and loopholes in the current legal framework; further calls on the Commission to make suggestions for an interpretation of Article 346 TFEU in line with the current reality of an interdependent security architecture in the EU; calls for the implementation of Directive 2009/81/EC on defence and sensitive security procurement and Directive 2009/43/EC on intra-EU transfers of defence-related products (the Transfers Directive) to be improved, and where needed, in the light of the EDIS, for proposals for the revision of these directives to be submitted;

Added32. Stresses the importance of ensuring a balanced effort between strengthening the existing armament industrial capabilities of the Member States in the short- and medium-term and supporting research and development (R&D) for new and innovative military equipment and armament tailored to the present and future needs of the armed forces of the Member States and to EU defence capabilities, such as those required by CSDP missions and operations and the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC); emphasises that priority should be given to keeping and enhancing the technological advantage through targeted strategic projects as a key element in deterrence with regard to our adversaries and competitors; underlines the importance of including all Member States in security and defence strategies, particularly with regard to the development of the defence industry;

Added33. Stresses the need to develop an effective EU-level armaments policy that includes the establishment of a functioning and effective external trade dimension, is aimed at supporting partners that face threats by aggressive authoritarian regimes, and prevents arms deliveries to undemocratic aggressive regimes in line with the eight existing EU criteria; stresses the need to overcome the very narrow and national interpretation of Article 346 TFEU in this regard;

Added34. Stresses that cooperation with international partners in the defence sector should be limited to like-minded partners and should not contravene the security and defence interests of the EU and its Member States; recalls that dependencies on high-risk suppliers of critical products with digital elements pose a strategic risk that should be addressed at EU level; calls on the Member States’ relevant authorities to reflect on how to reduce these dependencies and undertake an immediate assessment and review of existing Chinese investments in critical infrastructure, including power grids, the transport network and information and communication systems, to identify any vulnerabilities that could impact the security and defence of the Union;

Added35. Welcomes the revision of the EU’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Regulation; stresses the need to further strengthen FDI screening procedures by incorporating due diligence standards to identify cases where governments of states hold leverage over investors in EU critical infrastructure, such as European ports, and in undersea cables in the Baltic, Mediterranean and Arctic seas in ways that would contravene the security and defence interests of the Union and its Member States, as established within the framework of the CFSP pursuant to Title V of the TEU; underlines that this approach should also be applied to candidate countries; believes that additional legislation is needed to effectively protect the security of European ICT supply chain from high-risk vendors and protect against cyber-enabled intellectual property theft; calls for the creation of a European framework aimed at closely regulating and setting minimum standards and conditions for the export of intellectual property and technologies that are critical to the security and defence of the Union, including dual-use goods;

AddedResearch and development for defence technology and equipment

Added36. Supports a significant increase in investments in defence R&D, with a particular emphasis on collaborative initiatives, thereby strengthening the EU’s technological leadership and competitiveness in defence and ensuring a spillover effect in the civilian marketplace; notes, in this regard, that in 2022, the Member States invested approximately EUR 10.7 billion in defence R&D; underlines that technological advancement in critical domains – air, land, maritime, space and cyber – requires stable long-term investment across the Member States to keep pace with rapid global innovation;

Added37. Stresses the need for EU R&D instruments and funding to be used as effectively as possible in order to address capability gaps and priorities in a timely manner as laid out in the Defence Investment Gap Analysis and the CDP; calls, therefore, on the Commission and the Member States to align EDF projects and funding with the EU’s urgent capability needs and prioritise them on this basis, and to focus on the most relevant and promising research activities; further calls on the Commission to initiate a thorough review of the EDF in view of a revised follow-up financial instrument for the next multiannual financial framework (MFF); calls on the Commission and the Member States to adopt an approach that incorporates a low energy, carbon and environmental footprint by design when implementing relevant EU funds and to regularly report on progress; recalls that the R&D actions can be directed at solutions to improve efficiency, reduce the carbon footprint and achieve sustainable best practices; welcomes the relevant investment of EUR 133 million provided for in the first annual work programme, but notes that this represents only 11 % of the overall annual EDF budget; recalls the role of NextGenerationEU in climate action and calls on the Member States to use resources from their national recovery plans to invest in the sustainability of their military infrastructure;

AddedDual-use and emerging and disruptive technologies

Added38. Stresses the need to develop a more proactive role for the EU in sustaining investment in dual-use technologies, which can be applied in both civilian and military contexts, as a means to enhance the EU’s resilience against hybrid and emerging threats; underlines the need to support, in particular, the testing of prototypes of new products and to focus on new technologies in close cooperation with Ukrainian defence and technological actors; underlines the importance of ensuring the financial viability of companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), that invest in such innovation; advocates the promotion of civilian commercialisation of these technologies as a way to expand market opportunities and strengthen the European industrial base, fostering synergies between military and civilian development;

Added39. Highlights the important role that emerging disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cloud computing and robotics, play in defence; stresses that the development and harnessing of these technologies in defence require further EU-coordinated investment and research efforts so that the defence equipment suppliers in the EU remain at the forefront of innovation; notes that under the current EDF Regulation, with its long implementation cycles, the Commission fails to provide funding to research projects in a timely manner; calls, therefore, for a more flexible and faster approach for research projects on emerging disruptive technologies, reflecting the increasing pace of developments in that field building on the work of the European Defence Agency’s Hub for European Defence Innovation and drawing on the work of the US Defence Advanced Research Project Agency; further calls for the EU to play a leading role in promoting research into the military applications of artificial intelligence and in establishing governance frameworks for the responsible development and use of this technology;

Added40. Reiterates its call on the Commission to share with Parliament a detailed analysis of the risks linked to the misuse, by our adversaries, of technologies such as semiconductors, quantum computing, blockchains, space, artificial intelligence and biotechnologies, including genomics, as well as the list of proposed EU actions in these fields, in line with the EU’s economic security strategy; is concerned about the role of Chinese military-linked companies in gathering the genetic data of EU citizens;

AddedDefence SMEs

Added41. Reiterates that defence-related SMEs from across the Union are the backbone of the European defence industry and supply chains and are key to innovation in these areas, and emphasises the need to provide support to SMEs and start-ups, in particular, in the defence and dual-use sector; stresses that the EDIS and the EDIP must ensure a level playing field for all defence industry actors across the Union and promote cooperation between bigger and smaller companies from all Member States, ensuring that the industry will not be dominated by some large companies from a limited number of Member States; encourages the Member States to provide special opportunities for SMEs in the European defence sector to participate in the bidding process through such measures as creating a pre-approved list of companies to facilitate a faster engagement process, introducing private equity firms that invest in SMEs into the procurement process, assisting SME growth through incubation and capital investment, reducing the complexities of bidding for contracts, and implementing internal measures to reform the amount of time taken to process contract details;

AddedMilitary mobility

Added42. Highlights the importance of developing, maintaining and protecting the infrastructure necessary to ensure the rapid and efficient military mobility of our armed forces across the Member States; underlines the need to ensure the resilience of critical infrastructure that allows military mobility and the provision of essential services; recognises that military logistics can contribute to deterrence by signalling the EU’s overall military preparedness;

Added43. Underlines the urgent need to substantially enhance and invest in military mobility, prioritising investments and removing bottlenecks and missing links; stresses, in this regard, the importance of swiftly implementing projects and regulatory measures in accordance with the EU Action Plan on Military Mobility 2.0; supports new strategic investments in civil and military infrastructure, such as ports, airports and highways, which will also allow the smooth transfer of military units and supplies, including rapid reaction forces, heavy equipment, goods and humanitarian aid;

Added44. Calls on the Commission to develop an integrated approach to military mobility and logistics that ensures that the Council’s pledge to remove all remaining barriers by 2026 is upheld, and that coincides with much higher EU investment in key aspects of military mobility; further calls for the appropriate EU funding for ongoing and necessary military mobility projects to be secured in the next MFF; calls on the Member States to take further action to simplify and harmonise procedures for military mobility and shorten the timelines for granting permissions so that the Member States can act faster and increase their efficiency of response, in line with their defence needs and responsibilities, both in the context of CSDP missions and operations and in the context of national and multinational activities; encourages the Member States to use the third-country PESCO agreement on military mobility as a template for partner country participation, with an emphasis on tailoring PESCO projects to CSDP mission needs;

AddedAn updated Strategic Compass: promoting a common strategic vision and coherence, and improving EU decision-making on defence issues within the EU institutional framework

Strategic Compass

Change 8

Changed12.45. Stresses that geopolitical developments and threats have evolvedcontinued to evolve rapidly since the Strategic Compass was adopted by Member States in March 2022; calls, therefore, for a review of the comprehensive joint threat assessment enshrined in the Strategic CompassCompass, basedfrom which priorities for EU action should derive; believes that this review exercise should serve to define common views on aEurope-wide comprehensivecapability jointgaps, threatwhich assessment;should be addressed via bilateral, multinational or EU-level programmes, funds, projects and instruments, and set out the timeframe within which this should be done; calls, furthermore, for the Commission and the VP/HR to present an updated versionmeasures offor the Strategic Compass,Compass following this review exerciseexercise, if necessary, and for this to inform the preparation of the white paper on the future of European defence; reiterates that the Strategic Compass’s ambitious aims and milestones can only be achieved with corresponding political willingness and action on behalf of the Member States and the EU institutions; stresses the need for coherence and compatibility between the Strategic Compass and NATO’s Strategic Concept;

Change 9

Added46. Calls on the Commission and the EEAS to ensure that the Climate Change and Defence Roadmap is fully implemented and is improved within the context of updated measures under the Strategic Compass; calls for the timeframes for reviewing the Roadmap to be reconsidered and, in particular, for the overall objectives to be reviewed much earlier than 2030; calls on the Member States to develop national structures in support of the objectives; urges the VP/HR to propose to the Member States an action programme composed of priority actions presented in the Roadmap that can be implemented in the short term;

Defence governance: consolidating the EU institutional framework and decision-making process in defence and security fields

Change 10

Changed13.47. Suggests that the Council review the institutional settings of its decision-making bodies competent for defence and security, and consider setting up a new permanent decision-making body made up of ministers of defence from Member States;States, without prejudice to the respective distribution of competences within national ministries in this regard;

Change 11

Removed14. Reiterates its call to strengthen the EU military planning and conduct capability and to achieve full operational capability, including through the provision of adequate premises, staff, enhanced command and control, and effective communication and information systems for all CSDP missions and operations; reiterates its full support for the Rapid Deployment Capacity to achieve full operational capability in 2025, with at least 5 000 troops available for rescue and evacuation tasks, initial entry and stabilisation operations or temporary reinforcement of missions;

Added48. Stresses that effective EU-level cooperation in the field of security and defence and swift, coordinated responses to security challenges require coherence between the different structures of the Council and the Commission; stresses, furthermore, the need to prevent overlaps, guarantee efficient public investments, address critical capabilities gaps and develop coherent security strategies with respect to partners, third countries and various regions of the world, both in policymaking processes and in current and future initiatives; notes the unclear division of portfolios and the potential overlap of competences among commissioners in the field of security and defence following the creation of the position of Commissioner for Defence and Space, and therefore calls on the Commission to clearly delineate the competences of the commissioners in this field; invites the Commission to carry out an internal review of its various structures, including the Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space (DG DEFIS) and the European Defence Agency, and of their mandates in order to ensure complementarity and the efficient administration of current and future initiatives under the CSDP; calls on the Member States and the Commission to dedicate further financial and human resources to the EEAS to ensure that it can effectively perform its role as the EU’s diplomatic service in the light of the highly competitive geopolitical context and the increased demands on its limited capacities in recent years;

Added49. Reaffirms that, in order to become a credible geopolitical player, the EU should reform its process for decision-making on the CFSP/CSDP and underlines, in this regard, that institutional reflections on lifting the requirement for unanimity in this process should be considered; recalls that the EU Treaty framework already allows a number of different institutional forms of cooperation in the field of foreign, security and defence policy and notes with regret that the potential for fast action in this field, as provided for in the ‘passerelle clauses’ of the TEU, has been used only in a very limited manner; calls on the Council to consider all possibilities to strengthen and deepen its process for decision-making on the CFSP/CSDP with a view to realising the untapped potential within the Treaties; reiterates its call for the Council to gradually switch to qualified majority voting for decisions on the CFSP and CSDP, at least in those areas that do not have military implications; suggests, furthermore, that the Council pursue making full use of the ‘passerelle clauses’ and the scope of articles that enhance EU solidarity and mutual assistance in the event of crises;

Added50. Strongly reiterates its call to strengthen the EU Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) and achieve its full operational readiness, including through the provision of adequate premises, staff, enhanced command and control, and effective communication and information systems for all CSDP missions and operations; stresses the need to achieve timely results with regard to the MPCC, given the ambition of the Strategic Compass that the MPCC should function as the EU’s preferred command and control structure and be capable of planning and conducting all non-executive military missions and two small-scale or one medium-scale executive operation, as well as live exercises; stresses the need for the MPCC to facilitate synergies between civil and military instruments and calls for joint civil-military headquarters combining civil and military instruments to be set up at European level in the longer term, in order to make full use of the EU’s integrated approach in crisis management right from the strategic planning phase to the actual conduct of the mission or operation; takes the view that the EU’s Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability (CPCC) should consider how to protect a deployed force against multiple hybrid threats and conduct advanced operations at a far higher level of risk than in current contexts; calls on the Commission, the EEAS, the MPCC, the CPCC, the EU Military Committee and the EU Military Staff to foster a new culture of understanding between civilian and military partners, develop interagency cooperation and ensure the transfer of best practices in mission planning and the associated concepts, including by developing a model for generating and sharing best practices;

Added51. Reiterates its full support for the Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC) to achieve full operational capability in the first half of 2025 at the latest, with at least 5 000 troops available for rescue and evacuation tasks, initial entry and stabilisation operations or the temporary reinforcement of missions; notes that EU Battlegroups, which have never been deployed despite being operational since 2007, will be an integral part of the wider EU RDC framework; welcomes the planning and realisation of live exercises within the framework of the RDC and encourages the continuation of such initiatives;

Added52. Considers the RDC to be a key element for achieving the EU’s level of ambition and believes that additional troops and force elements should gradually be assigned to it, with reference to the Helsinki Headline Goal of 1999; believes that it would make sense to use the White Paper process to launch a discussion about the creation of additional permanent multinational EU military units that could fulfil complementary tasks to the RDC; highlights the need to engage further with NATO on the establishment of the RDC, in line with the principle of the single set of forces;

Added53. Reiterates its call on the Member States to consider the practical aspects of implementing Article 44 TEU during the operationalisation of the RDC, as well as in other relevant CSDP missions, in order to enable a group of willing and capable Member States to plan and carry out a mission or operation within the EU framework, thereby facilitating the swift activation of the RDC; calls on the Member States to commit to substantially narrowing critical gaps in strategic enablers in a timely manner, in particular those linked to the RDC, such as strategic airlift, secure communications and information systems, medical assets, cyber-defence capabilities and intelligence and reconnaissance; calls on the Commissioner for Defence and Space to consider including, in his proposed European defence projects of common interest, initiatives aimed at providing the necessary strategic enablers that would facilitate CSDP missions and operations and the RDC;

Increasing resources dedicated to the EU common security and defence policy

Change 12

Changed15.54. Welcomes the increased budgets and investment in defence by Member States and the increase, albeit modest, in the EU budget for the CSDP in 2024; callsstrongly onbelieves that, in the light of unprecedented security threats, all EU Member States should urgently reach a level of defence spending, as a proportion of their GDP, that haveis notsignificantly yethigher reachedthan NATO’s current target of 2 %; acknowledges that 23 of the minimum32 thresholdNATO Allies, including 16 countries that are members of both the EU and NATO, were expected to meet NATO’s spending target of devoting 2 % of their GDP devoted to defence expenditure by the end of 2024; points out that this has increased sixfold since 2014, when this target was pledged; notes that the EU’s current budget for security and defence given the current geopolitical upheaval and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, is not equal to resolutelythe commitchallenges to graduallybe increasingmet theirin militarythe budgets;short recommendsand that,long term; recommends, in the light of the estimated need for EUR 500 billion of defence investment by 2035 and on the basis of continuous analysis of capability needs,needs and gaps, that the Member States further increase thisdefence threshold,investments, in particular for the joint procurement of defence capabilities;capabilities, and fully supports the targets set under the EDIS in this respect;

Change 13

Changed16.55. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to initiate an open discussion based on the basis of among other things, the recommendations presented in Mr Draghi’sthe reportreports onby theMr futureDraghi ofand EuropeanMr competiveness,Niinistö, including increasing the resources allocated to security and defence in the next multiannual financial frameworkMFF and exploring all effective funding options to this end;end, and pooling parts of national defence budgets at EU level in order to generate economies of scale; further calls on the Member States to amend the EPF financing process to ensure adequate and sustainable support for partners and allies, while also aligning with CSDP missions and operations; calls for a strategy to be devised with the aim of creating centres of excellence in different regions of the EU, without duplicating NATO’s work in these fields, in order to promote innovation and the participation of all Member States, ensuring that the capabilities and specialised knowledge of each Member State contribute to a more cohesive and integrated defence industrial base;

Change 14

RemovedContributing more effectively to world peace through EU common security and defence policy and strengthening the role of the EU as a security actor

Added56. Recalls that the EU’s objectives of solidarity, cohesion and convergence also apply to defence; stresses that the financial means needed to rebuild and expand our defence capabilities in the decade to come will have a significant impact on the soundness and sustainability of public finances, and therefore requires cooperation and coordination at EU level through a genuine defence economic policy; underlines that increases in defence investment should not compete with other investment priorities, including social cohesion; 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 be sustainable in the long term; stresses that the financial burden must therefore be shared fairly, especially by profitable companies that already benefit from public participation or state aids; emphasises, furthermore, that public spending should be complemented by increased private funding; calls on the Commission to reflect upon possible fiscal avenues that would allow a fairer distribution of the financial burden and limit competition disturbances in the EDTIB induced by state aids and market-distorting tendering processes;

Added57. Calls for the next MFF to genuinely provide the means for a defence union; supports proposals to provide massive EU financial investment in European defence and to stimulate research and technological innovation and dual-use projects in the European defence industry, thereby strengthening its competitiveness and promoting advances that contribute both to security and to sustainable economic growth; underlines that defence investment from the EU budget should only complement, but not replace, financial efforts by the Member States, especially with regard to the ambition of countries that are members of both the EU and NATO to invest 2 % of their GDP in defence; invites the Member States to bring forward the re-assessment of the scope and definition of common costs, to enhance solidarity and stimulate participation in CSDP military missions and operations, and of exercise-related costs, in line with the Strategic Compass;

Added58. Is concerned about the lack of much-needed private financing for the EDTIB, particularly for SMEs, which may derive from a lack of long-term government contracts or from an overly narrow interpretation of environmental, social and governance criteria; welcomes, therefore, the clarification provided by the European Securities and Market Authority on 14 May 2024 to the effect that only companies involved in weapons banned under international law are automatically excluded from accessing funds; welcomes the proposals made in Mr Niinistö’s report to avoid fragmentation in defence spending, combine relevant funding streams and trigger more private-sector investment; calls on the Commission to assess the recommendations and come up with concrete proposals; highlights the need for the defence industry to get better access to capital markets;

AddedEIB lending policy for the defence sector

Added59. Stresses the importance of access for the defence sector to the loans provided by the EIB as a catalyst for private investment in the European defence industry; welcomes the further extension of the EIB’s eligibility criteria to dual-use goods and calls on the EIB to take further measures in this regard; stresses that given that the EIB’s objective of promoting the development of the EU and supporting its policies, in particular defence policy and the strengthening of the EDTIB, in line with Article 309 TFEU, the EIB should further review its lending policy and continuously adapt it; calls on the EIB to conduct a review of the impact of the extension of its dual-use goods policy and to reform its eligibility list as appropriate so that ammunition and military equipment that go beyond dual-use application are no longer excluded from EIB financing; welcomes the EIB’s 2022 Strategic European Security Initiative aimed at supporting dual-use research, development and innovation, security infrastructure and technology projects focused on cybersecurity, New Space, artificial intelligence and quantum technologies;