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Europe puts 40 billion for defense from 2021? Stop fire

(credit: DICOD/EMA)

(B2) When defense Europe was a minority subject, when few of them believed in it, we already heard a certain amount of nonsense and untruths. But they disappeared buried under the carpet of oblivion. Since defense Europe is very "hipe", the magnifying glass effect makes it possible to circulate the most eccentric figures. With the complicity, even the incitement, of those who are supposed to promote this project.

This is the case with the European Commission's idea of ​​putting 40 billion euros on the table after 2020 or 5,5 billion per year. Figure cheerfully taken up by several media, including the phone rings at France-Inter, with Stéphane Leneuf (whom we got to know a little better inspired). It must be said very clearly: this figure is, really, totally bogus. The European Commission loves to inflate these figures by spreading them over several years and above all by lumping together apples and cherries. But not everything the Commission says is true.

Let's be precise... The Commission has, for the moment, only concretely put on the table 90 million euros over three years for the preparatory action for defense research: 25 million per year in 2017, 35 million in 2018 and it projects 25 million in 2019. It has announced that it wants to put into play 250 million per year in 2019 and 2020 in addition for industrial development projects (500 million over two years).

For these two actions, it has put forward the idea (it is not yet a firm proposal), of putting 1,5 billion euros annually from 2021 for the next budgetary framework (and the next Commission): 500 million for defense research and 1 billion for defense industrial development. It is noticeable. But we are very far from 40 billion.

To arrive at this wonderful figure, it is calculated over the seven years of the budget period. Which gives 10,5 billion euros. It's rounder... the Commission estimates that for 1 euro that it puts in, the States will put in 3 or 4 euros. And so we arrive at the famous 40 billion (over 7 years) or 5 or 6 billion (per year). It's richer and sounds better...

But that is a talent for prestidigitation. On the one hand, these 3 or 4 euros will not come from the European budget but from the budget of the Member States. And it will not automatically be additional euros. States will dip into their existing or future budgets. On the other hand, the multiplier coefficient is very contingent. The defense industrial development project mentions Community co-financing ranging from 30% or 20% (for prototypes, depending on whether they are carried out within the framework of permanent structured cooperation or not) to an undefined percentage of up to 80% or 100% (for other projects). In other words, we are not in a multiplier of 1 to 4 but rather of 1 to 2 or 2,5.

If we take the same scale at the French level, we would arrive at a budget of more than 600 billion euros! That is to say the approximately 33 billion euros of annual budget over seven years + the multiplier of economic benefits (2 euros for 1 euro invested according to the scale of the chief of staff Pierre De Villiers). It's not really serious! Defense Europe does not need bogus figures. What the Commission has put on the table is already notable and important enough. It is not necessary to add more. It should not fear the reality of the figures rather than phosphorizing on very random surveys. On a field as sensitive as defence, where European credibility is not yet established, one should not joke with the figures and the usual methods of the European Commission (1) cannot be used.

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)

(1) The European Commission has become accustomed to communication that takes "comfort" with reality. This was the case in particular to promote the expected benefits of trade agreements or certain liberalization measures.

(2) Let us add to this that the current Commission is committed to an uncertain future. The discussion of the next financial framework should, in fact, be done rather in the 2019-2020 horizon, therefore within the framework of a new Commission and a new Parliament resulting from the 2019 elections, with the exit of the United Kingdom moreover, which requires a fundamental review of European funding. It's risky but it's a political gamble. And we must remain moderate in criticism. Europe has so often suffered from political timidity on Defense that it would perhaps be inappropriate to criticize it today, when it is experiencing a burst of audacity.

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Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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