On Tuesday, the European Commission proposed a new program for defense industries valued at €1.5 billion ($1.63 billion), funded by the European Union’s budget for the years 2025 to 2027.
In a statement, the European Commission said the new program encourages EU member states to collectively purchase at least 40% of their defense equipment by 2030.
The Commission also suggested utilizing a portion of the profits from frozen Russian assets to fund the purchase of weapons for Ukraine.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated last week in Strasbourg, “The risk of war may not be imminent, but it is not impossible,” urging Europeans to “wake up urgently.”
She emphasized the necessity of “rebuilding and modernizing the armed forces of the 27 [member states]” after decades of budget cuts following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
According to European Commissioner Thierry Breton, this program will allow European defense industries to increase their annual production capacity to two million shells by 2025, compared to less than a quarter of this number before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022.
“We are doing this for artillery ammunition, and we must now do it for all the equipment necessary for our security,” said the former French minister.
Therefore, the European Commission proposes to encourage joint purchases of weapons produced within the European Union. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, about seventy percent of the weapons purchased by Europeans to assist Kyiv have come from the United States, as stated by a European official who requested anonymity.
