Six or seven countries may apply for additional SAFE loans — RMF24
Brussels is looking for countries ready to take out an additional €20–21 billion in loans under the SAFE programme for the EU’s defence needs. As RMF24 reports, only six or seven EU member states may apply for these funds.
SAFE is a defence loan programme with a total volume of €150 billion. The amount available again consists of unused funds, approximately €6 billion after Italy reduced its planned loans and around €11 billion by which Hungary cut its plans. The European Commission wants to announce a new call for applications at the end of November or the beginning of December.
Fewer countries interested in additional loans
According to the outlet, Italy and Hungary, which reduced their plans, have preliminarily indicated that they are not interested in additional financing. Spain and Portugal are also not interested in new loans: implementation of the programme in these countries has been slow.
Romania, Latvia and Estonia may be unable to increase borrowing because of the state of their public finances. As a result, the European Commission needs to find states willing to use the significant remaining funds of the programme.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
Poland has not yet made a decision
Poland’s decision could be key to the distribution of the second SAFE tranche, as Brussels believes that it has the capacity to take out an additional loan. The Polish government has not yet made a final decision.
Poland can no longer direct these funds solely toward independent national procurements, as the deadline for submitting such projects expired in May. To obtain new financing, it needs to prepare joint orders with at least one other state. The European Commission also insists on Ukraine’s participation in such projects, while Poland is primarily interested in modernising its own armed forces.
Projects financed from the second SAFE tranche must be implemented by 2030. If additional funds are provided only in 2027, approximately three years will remain to fulfil the contracts. An additional factor for Warsaw is that SAFE provides loans rather than non-repayable grants.
