European Union supports Estonia in purchasing weapons and ammunition

The IRIS-T SLM air defence system. Photo: Fabian Bimmer / Reuters / Scanpix

The European Commission has approved funding for five cross-border projects to support more coordinated and efficient defense procurement among EU member states, with three of the projects involving Estonia.

Implemented under the European Defense Industry Reinforcement through Common Procurement instrument (EDIRPA), each of the five projects will receive 60 million euros, representing a total amount of 300 million euros in funding, and leveraging the procurement of more than 11 billion euros worth of defense products, the Commission said in a press release.

Two of the projects will bolster joint air and missile defense capabilities. The MISTRAL project supports the common procurement of Mistral very short-range air defense systems by nine member states: France, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Spain, Hungary, SIovenia, Romania and Denmark. Another project, JAMIE (for Joint Air Missile Defense Initiative in Europe), will result in the common procurement of IRIS-T SLM medium-range air defense systems by six member states: Germany, SIovenia, Bulgaria, Austria, Estonia and Latvia. These are systems for protection against air threats such as combat aircraft, attack helicopters and unmanned air systems.

In two further projects, EDIRPA will support the common procurement of different types of 155 millimeter artillery ammunition, namely the project «CPoA 155mm» involving six member states: Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Denmark and Croatia, and the project «HE 155mm» involving four member states: Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and Estonia.

EDIRPA will also support the procurement of the common armored vehicle system (CAVS), a modern armored carrier for protected troop transport, by four member states: Finland, Latvia, Sweden and Germany. The modern armored vehicles offer high performance and unprecedented mobility.

Bringing greater value for money through economies of scale, the common procurement will make critical defense capabilities more affordable for member states' armed forces. With products procured in common, member states' armed forces will have improved interoperability. The clearer perspectives and greater predictability, which come with larger contracts, will strengthen the European industry, and allow it to adapt its production capacity to Europe's defense needs.

The five selected projects represent a combined procurement value exceeding 11 billion euros, illustrating the high leverage of EU funding. EDIRPA's 300 million euro investment has incentivized a commitment over 36 times larger, demonstrating the program's effectiveness in driving substantial defense investments across the EU.

Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president of the Commission, said this is the first time we use EU budget to support member states in commonly procuring defense products.

«This operation has been a success: we are investing 300 million euros into five projects addressing critical and urgent defense capability gaps. This will allow to provide better value for money for national defense budgets, improve the interoperability of European armed forces, strengthen our industry and make Europe better prepared to face defense threats. Importantly, the selected projects will also increase our support to Ukraine, with additional defense equipment,» Vestager said.

In addition to the selected projects, other promising proposals were submitted. They have been added to a reserve list making them identifiable for potential future funding. For instance, the member states involved in these proposals could seek to financially support them by transferring unused EU funds allocated to them under shared management.

The selected EDIRPA projects involve 20 member states, some of which will engage in common defense procurements projects for the first time. This reflects EDIRPA's role in encouraging collaboration among member states to address critical capability gaps, in particular those exacerbated by the transfer of defense products to Ukraine. On average, six member states are participating in each project -- double the minimum legal requirement of three member states -- showing the interest towards a more unified European approach to defense procurement.

By the submission deadline of July 25, 2024, the Commission received a total of 12 proposals, showing the significant interest from member states and Norway. The Commission services checked the admissibility and eligibility of the received proposals and evaluated them in line with the provisions of the EDIRPA Regulation.

The EDIRPA program is a short-term instrument adopted following Russia's aggression against Ukraine and made to last until 2025 with the aim to incentivize cooperation for the most urgent defense products. The program supports the procurement of defense capabilities by the armed forces of the member states and Norway. The EDIRPA budget is not paying for defense products but is compensating member states for the additional administrative costs of procuring in common. In March 2024, the Commission presented the proposal on a European Defense Industry Program (EDIP) to extend the EDIRPA logic beyond 2025, to continue to aggregate European demand and increase interoperability.