A draught of the summit’s conclusions indicates that European Union leaders are pushing to quickly establish an investment programme to increase production in the bloc’s defence industry in light of the conflict in Ukraine.
The draft, seen by Reuters on Wednesday, stated that ‘the European Council… calls on the Commission to promptly present a proposal for a European Defence Investment Programme to strengthen the capacity and resilience of the European defence technology and industrial sector, including small and medium enterprises.’
Before the summit, the paper is expected to be modified.
The executive commission of the EU and the European Defence Agency will be pushed by EU leaders to step up efforts to identify military shortages and coordinate cooperative defence purchases, particularly to refill their stockpiles of equipment that have been depleted in support of Ukraine.
The EU has long urged its members to cooperate when buying weaponry rather than pushing up costs by bidding against one another or making separate agreements with suppliers outside the organisation.
However, the Ukraine conflict, which Russia refers to as a ‘special operation,’ and the frequency of Western weaponry shipments to Kyiv have given a new urgency.
Josep Borrell, the head of the EU’s foreign policy, stated last month that the EU and its member states have already sent Ukraine armaments and military hardware totaling at least 8 billion euros.
According to the draught text, EU leaders will also demand that infrastructure projects that will permit quick military movement throughout Europe be implemented more quickly at their meeting in Brussels.
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