EU proposes emergency funds to help European militaries amid Russia's Ukraine war
BRUSSELS, May 18 (Reuters) - The European Union's executive proposed on Wednesday a 500 million euro ($525.70 million) defence fund that would help EU governments develop and buy more weapons together, saying that Russia's war in Ukraine showed the need to modernise.
The money, which would come from the EU's long-term budget and could also increase with private sector funding, would meet the most pressing weakness in air, land and sea defences.
It would require the bloc's governments to make purchases jointly as a means to boost collaboration, one of the EU's long-term goals to overcome years of wasted spending as governments pursued national projects leading to duplication.
While most of the EU's states are members of NATO, EU defence cooperation is seen as strengthening the Western alliance's European members and reducing dependency on the United States, with all assets still available for NATO use.
The emergency money would be available for 2023 and 2024 but must be agreed by all 27 EU governments.
The EU has already launched a long-term joint weapons fund and has agreed to revitalise its rapid-reaction force. However, joint spending and investment in defence research remains disjointed and lacking collaboration.
Even before Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, European Union states spent nearly 200 billion euros ($225 billion) on defence in 2020, the most since records began in 2006. But joint investment by governments fell, the European Defence Agency (EDA) said in December.
Without U.S. help, the EU would struggle to defend itself, lacking intelligence, reconnaissance aircraft and medium-range missile defence as well as amphibious ships and submarines, according to a 2020 report by the European Parliament's sub-committee on security and defence. ($1 = 0.9511 euros) (Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten)
