Illegal use of the European Defence Fund

Subject: Illegal use of the European Defence Fund

Can the Commission comment on the fact that legal advice recently published by the University of Bremen states that since Article 40 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) bars recourse to the legal bases of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) for the provision of specific support to the defence industry and defence-related research and technological development (RTD) measures, in addition to establishing a comitology committee for this purpose, the establishment of the European Defence Fund (EDF) was in violation of EU law.

Can the Commission also comment on the illegal use of defence-related funding measures being taken from the general budget of the EU, when, pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 41(2) TEU, the implementation of Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) tasks – which in the case of the EDF would relate to measures on military or defence policy – should be borne by the Member States in accordance with the GNP scale.

What measures will the Commission take to reverse the illegal use of the EU budget for military purposes in light of this legal opinion?

Answer given by Ms Bieńkowska on behalf of the European Commission (11 April 2019)

In accordance with Article 41(2) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), operating expenditure arising from operations having military or defence implications cannot be charged to the Union budget.

The European Defence Fund however aims at fostering the competitiveness and innovativeness of the Union’s defence technological and industrial base by supporting defence-oriented research and development activities, without providing any funding to operations having military or defence implications.

The proposed Regulation establishing the European Defence Fund (1) is accordingly based on the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), Titles XVII ‘Industry’ and XIX ‘Research and Technological Development and Space’ (i.e. Articles 173, 182, 183 and 188). Consequently, the Commission considers that the legal basis for the European Defence Fund is consistent with the TEU and the TFEU.

⋅1∙ COM(2018) 476 final. | | ( | | )