European Defence Fund research budget could drop to €2.65bn

Council position would cut EU defence research spending to two-thirds of Commission proposal

EU member state governments want the forthcoming European Defence Fund to spend €2.65 billion on joint military research in 2021-27, down from the €4.1bn first proposed by the European Commission.

A position adopted by the Council of the EU, published on 1 October, sets out how governments want to allocate the overall budget of €7.9bn that national leaders agreed in July they want to allocate to the EDF. This is down from the €13bn total EDF budget the Commission suggested in June 2018.