Why the ban on using EU funds for arms could become more flexible
War budget
Could the EU’s treaties, long considered to unequivocally prevent the bloc from buying weapons with its shared budget, have been misinterpreted this whole time? That’s what some in the European Commission are hoping.
Context: Russia’s war has forced the EU into a top-to-bottom rethink of its defence and security policies. It has also sparked a scramble to raise money, quickly, to fund the continent’s biggest rearmament programme since the cold war.
Article 41(2) of the Treaty on European Union states that the budget cannot fund “operations having military or defence implications”. The Financial Times reported last week that the commission, the bloc’s executive, has established a legal task force to reassess what that really means.
The question the EU’s in-house lawyers are being asked to ponder is whether “operations” refers only to the EU’s own operations. If so, could the budget buy weapons for operations conducted by other entities (such as the Ukrainian army)?
Proponents describe it as a natural consideration given the drive to find more “creative” methods of funding, saying it would “streamline” existing off-budget instruments such as the Ukraine Assistance Fund which finances weapons for Kyiv.
Such a change would mark the most significant shift in the EU’s approach to defence since the formation of the bloc’s Common Foreign and Security Policy more than 30 years ago.
But convincing Brussels’ legal brains is likely to be far easier than getting all the 27 member states to accept such an interpretation. Especially the militarily neutral states of Ireland, Austria and Malta.
At a summit of EU leaders last week, various “innovative” defence funding ideas were discussed, including using the European Investment Bank to invest in weapons production and issuing new joint “defence bonds”.
“It is a bad idea, a bad idea to try to actually change the treaties on a subject like this,” Charles Michel, the EU Council president who chaired the summit, told reporters afterwards. “Now is not the time to open an institutional battle or a battle of competencies on such a subject.”