EU investments in defence: Council and Parliament agree to support faster, more flexible and coordinated investments in European defence 23:50 The presidency of the Council and[...]

The Council and the European Parliament negotiators reached a provisional agreement on measures to incentivise defence-related investments in the current EU budget to implement the so-called ReArm Europe plan, an EU initiative to increase defence spending and strengthen the EU's military capabilities.

The agreement includes a landmark decision to associate Ukraine to the European Defence Fund, underscoring the EU's enduring commitment to Ukraine's security, resilience, and gradual integration into the European defence industrial base.

The provisional agreement reached today broadly maintains the general thrust of the Commission proposal, which aims to facilitate faster, more flexible and coordinated investments in the European defence technological and industrial base (EDTIB) by amending five EU regulations:

• the Digital Europe Programme
• the European Defence Fund
• the Connecting Europe Facility
• the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP), and
• Horizon Europe

The co-legislators agreed to extend EU financial support within Horizon Europe to dual-use and defence-related companies, while largely maintaining the eligibility rules already present in EU instruments such as SAFE ('Security Action for Europe Instrument') and EDIP ('European Defence Programme').

In addition, co-legislators agreed to associate Ukraine to the European Defence Fund, thus creating new possibilities for Ukrainian entities to join in EU collaborative defence research and development activities in the future.

Next steps

The agreement reached today will have to be confirmed by both institutions before being formally adopted.

Background

The so-called 'mini-Omnibus for defence' is a package of legal changes proposed by the European Commission in April 2025 to make it easier for existing EU funds - normally meant for supporting regional development, innovation, industrial support, etc. - to be used also for strengthening the EU's defence industry.

This initiative is complemented by the so-called defence readiness omnibus package presented in June 2025 by the Commission which is currently being examined by the Council. Both proposals aim to incentivise defence-related investments and improve Europe's defence readiness, as requested by the European Council in March 2025.

• Defence: Council agrees position to incentivise defence-related investments in the EU budget (press release, 8 October 2025)
• Regulation as regards incentivising defence-related investments in the EU budget to implement the ReArm Europe Plan, Council mandate, 8 October 2025
• Boosting European defence expenditure (background information)
• ReArm Europe plan (Commission background information)