MNI: European Commission Lowers Defence Ambition As Far Right Gains

A European Commission options paper on joint funding for defence to be submitted to the June 27-28 EU summit will scale back its ambition following far-right gains in European parliamentary officials, sources with knowledge of talks told MNI.

While it is still expected there will be language in the summit conclusions asking the European Investment Bank to "step up" lending to the defence sector, this will not go beyond the expanded definition of dual-use technologies which the EIB can already finance, and draw on EUR6 billion remaining in its Strategic European Security Initiative, the sources said.

EU leaders had called on the Commission to prepare the document at its March summit. (See MNI INTERVIEW: Germany Could Back EU Defence Borrowing- Wolff)

"On the one side you have Austria, which doesn't want to do anything and at the other extreme you have Finland for example which wants the EU to actually buy weapons," one source said.