Buy European, not US defence equipment: EU chief tells allies

Brussels: European Union countries must purchase military equipment made in Europe under a new loan programme meant to help the continent provide for its own security, a top EU official said Tuesday, even though most of its defence material currently comes from US suppliers.

At a summit last week, the EU’s 27 leaders weighed a European Commission proposal for a new loan plan worth $163 billion.

It would be used to buy air defence systems, drones and “strategic enablers” like air transport, as well as to boost cybersecurity.

“These loans should finance purchases from European producers, to help boost our own defence industry,” Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told EU lawmakers.

Von der Leyen said the “contracts should be multiannual, to give the industry the predictability they need” and that the priority should be for countries to buy equipment together in groups “because we have seen how powerful this can be”. European NATO members have placed about two-thirds of their orders with US companies in recent years, but they are being spurred into action by the Trump administration’s warnings that they will have to provide for their own security, and Ukraine’s, in future.

France wants the commission to put more money into the loan plan and has also insisted that it should only be spent in Europe.