European leaders will discuss today and tomorrow “exploring all possible options” to “mobilize” funds with which they can finance their new defense needs, says the latest draft conclusions of the summit that begins today in Brussels, which “invites” the European Investment Bank (EIB) to “adapt” its lending policy to support the defense industry, but “safeguarding its financial capacity”, he adds in allusion to its high rating credit
“We are facing the biggest threat to security since the Second World War, it is time to take concrete and radical measures to be ready for defense and build the EU’s economy on a war footing,” writes the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, in his letter of invitation to the summit. He does not cite them, but Michel is among the defenders not only of the EIB being more powerful in this field, but of the issuance of “Eurobonds” to finance these acquisitions, as is also the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Policy Security, Josep Borrell, and the European Commissioner for Industry, Thierry Breton, defend today in La Vanguardia.
The mention of exploring “all possible formulas” to finance military spending leaves the door open to the initiative led by France, Poland and Estonia to launch a joint issue of debt for this purpose, but the initiative is notably opposed by ‘ Germany.
The German Government, however, has moved and this week has added to the letter written by more than a dozen countries in favor of a greater role for the EIB in the defense sector. “Let’s go step by step. On Tuesday I was with the German Chancellor Olaf Sholz. Let’s try to find digestible solutions for everyone”, said the conciliatory Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, yesterday. “I am not obsessed with Eurobonds. The important thing is to find funding”, he assured.
The other war of the moment, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, will also occupy an important place on the agenda of European leaders, who will have lunch today with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, to address the situation in Gaza and the financing of the Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The positions of the Twenty-seven are evolving, several diplomatic sources confirm, and the European Council will try to update its common position to call for a ceasefire, instead of limiting itself to talking about “humanitarian pauses”.
