EU reaches agreement on plan backing defence industest
BRUSSELS, Belgium, Oct 17, 2025 (BSS/AFP) – The European Union on Thursday arrived at an agreement for a programme boosting its defence industest, with an initial 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) to ramp up production and supply chains, the Council of the EU declared.
The development — the fruit of long nereceivediations — puts the bloc on track to improve its defence readiness, and also aims to “support defence industrial cooperation with Ukraine”, the body, which represents member countries, declared in a statement.
The 1.5-billion-euro budobtain for the European Defence Industest Programme (EDIP), provided as grants, covers the period 2025-2027, according to the agreement struck with the European Parliament.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the news as an important step towards the EU being “defence-ready by 2030”.
Nereceivediations on the EDIP had long been dogged by the question of whether or not to give a preference to European-created military equipment, weapons and ammunition.
Some EU countries wanted to utilize the programme to finance the purchase of materiel from outside the bloc, notably from the United States.
The compromise reached will limit the value of components created outside the EU or its partner countries such as Norway, to 35 percent of the total investment.
“EDIP will reverse the importation practice long observed in Europe, to concretely support a ramping up of our industrial base,” declared one of the lead MEPs on the issue, Francois-Xavier Bellamy.
Currently, the EU obtains more than 60 percent of its military weapons and systems from outside the bloc, mainly from the United States. Brussels wants to reduce that to 45 percent.
Some 300 million euros from the first EDIP budobtain will go to defence cooperation with Ukraine.
The European Parliament declared it has secured funding towards the budobtain from non-EU countries that also want to participate in the EDIP, such as Britain and Canada.
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