The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, the Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk.Fabian Bimmer (REUTERS)
The die is cast: the European Investment Bank (EIB) is going to have to become more involved in European rearmament.
A group of 14 countries has sent a letter to the president of the EU's large financial arm, Nadia Calviño, urging her to become more involved in financing the defense industry.
European leaders ask the former Spanish vice president to expand the definition of dual use (civil and military), thus inflating the list of activities susceptible to receiving credits from this entity, which is prohibited from financing exclusively military projects.
The letter, signed by heads of Government and State, has the signature of leaders such as the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, or the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni;
Not so with that of the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez.
For years now, the EIB has been able to finance industrial projects in the defense industry if the result has what is known as dual use.
This allows it to have a program of 8,000 million allocated to these projects until 2027, of which only 2,000 have been consumed so far.
But the current situation requires more ambition, the signatories of the letter say.
“Russian aggression against Ukraine has increased the need for European investments in the security and defense sector.
In this context, the financing power of the EIB is urgently needed,” states the text, advanced by the
Financial Times
and to which EL PAÍS has accessed.
At the meeting of finance ministers, Ecofin, which was held last February in Ghent, there was already consensus in demanding that Calviño, present at the meeting, prepare a report in two months on “the definition and scope of technologies dual-use,” as the former Spanish vice president herself explained to this newspaper.
The investment and spending needs in Defense are enormous, as well as in the ecological and digital transition.
Precisely in that appointment, the president of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, estimated the amount needed at an additional 75 billion a year, hence the majority of capital, and also the European Commission, see the EIB as an essential tool.
In this context the letter arrives, in which the majority of Member States - at the same time shareholders of the entity, which far exceed 50% of the capital - try to mark the path of this task.
“We need to explain the possibilities that the EIB would have to finance investment in defense-related activities beyond current dual-use projects.
“This would mean debating and re-evaluating the current definitions of dual-use projects and the list of excluded activities, as well as reconsidering its defense industry lending policy and other restrictive elements,” the letter states.
Taking this step would mean a very significant change in the entity's credit policy, which until relatively recently was restricted from even giving loans for dual-use activities.
The EIB has been doing this for a few years now and now the time has come for a new leap.
How far will it go?
That has yet to be finalized.
Community sources told this newspaper a few weeks ago that they found it difficult for the main financial arm of the EU to give credits to the direct manufacture of ammunition.
This can be deduced from the responses that Calviño gave to EL PAÍS precisely in Ghent: “It is crucial to know well whether in each of the markets, and in each activity, more financing is needed or are other levers that can strengthen the European industry of defense," he answered, later clarifying that these "other levers" could be, for example, that governments sign contracts for the purchase of weapons and ammunition that ensure business for manufacturers and encourage them to invest.
The need for Europe to have a more powerful security and defense industry and to rearm has been open practically since the large-scale invasion of Ukraine that Vladimir Putin launched on February 24, 2022. However, in recent months the voices calling for it They claim they do so with much more insistence, supported by the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House, and the critical situation that Ukraine is experiencing in its defense against Russian aggression.
This would lead the EU to consider the need to invest in a sector that until recently could be considered stigmatized in the public opinion for two reasons: the requirement to deliver ammunition and weapons to Kiev so that it does not lose the war and the obligation of the Member States to depend less on NATO (United States) to guarantee their security.
Added to this situation are the continuous calls heard from the countries closest to Russia and from German espionage pointing out that Moscow would be in a position to attack one of the NATO countries in two years.
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