Top EU official floats 100-billion-euro fund to boost defense industry amid Russian war on Ukraine

BRUSSELS (AFP): The EU’s internal market commissioner Thierry Breton on Thursday floated the idea of a 100-billion-euro ($110-billion) fund to boost Europe’s defense industry in the face of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“It is an ambition, a vision,” Breton told journalists in Brussels.

The French commissioner gave no details on how the potential fund would be financed and conceded any plan still needed to be debated within the 27-nation bloc.

He said the figure was his “personal assessment, what I consider to be necessary” to significantly increase the capacity of Europe’s defense industry.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine provided a wake-up call for the EU that it needs to bolster defense manufacturing after years of downsizing following the end of the Cold War.

Breton has already launched a series of smaller-scale initiatives aimed at bolstering ammunition production and EU defense firms as the bloc struggles to arm Kyiv and refill its own stocks.

He insisted the EU would by “March, April” reach a target he set of having the capacity to produce 1 million 155-millimeter artillery shells each year.

Breton insisted that stepping up Europe’s ability to arm itself was a “vital subject” and would have to be a key focus for any leaders taking the EU’s reins after elections in June.

Despite facing a battery of unprecedented economic sanctions from the West, Moscow has managed to ramp up its weapon production and has also turned to allies such as North Korea for supplies.

Attempts to push through a fund on the scale pitched by Breton would likely face resistance from the EU’s so-called “frugal” countries such as Germany.

But it has drawn some support from countries on Russia’s border like Poland that strongly back efforts to bulk up Europe’s defenses.