EU grants financial support to eight more members under SAFE program

On February 17, the Council of the European Union adopted several decisions granting financial assistance to eight additional member states under the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) initiative.

Under the second SAFE assistance package, funding worth €74 billion will be made available to Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Finland, accounting for nearly half of the €150 billion allocated through the SAFE financial instrument, with Poland alone requesting more than €43 billion, Caliber.Az reports per foreign media.

"These implementing decisions will pave the way for affordable, long-term loans to be released by the Commission under the SAFE instrument, demonstrating that the EU is delivering when it comes to defence," a spokesperson for the Cypriot presidency of the Council of the European Union noted.

This approval follows the green light given last week by defence ministers to a first batch of plans from Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, Croatia, Cyprus, Portugal and Romania, with the combined value of those proposals reaching €38 billion.

A total of 19 member states have applied for financial assistance under SAFE. Czechia, France, and Hungary are still awaiting the Commission’s approval, which they need before submitting their plans to ministers for final endorsement. Once approved, the EU executive can finalise loan agreements with them and release pre-financing payments of up to 15% of the requested amounts.

Security Action for Europe (SAFE), part of the Commission’s Readiness 2030 plan aiming to channel up to €800 billion into defence by the end of the decade, is designed to accelerate the procurement of priority defence equipment.

These cover ammunition and missiles, artillery systems, drones and counter-drone systems, air and missile defence systems, critical infrastructure and space asset protection, cybersecurity, AI technologies, and electronic warfare capabilities.

By Jeyhun Aghazada