Two resolutions adopted on 17 December 2025 set out Parliament’s assessment of European defence financing needs and military mobility gaps. The headline figures, a €800bn capability gap, and only 10 of 27 Member States committed to 3% GDP defence spending by 2030, frame a pointed institutional challenge to the Commission
The Defence Readiness 2030 resolution opens with a clear set of figures. EU Member States collectively spent €343 billion on defence in 2024, a 19% increase on 2023, reaching 1.9% of GDP, with the EDA projecting the 2% NATO guideline may be exceeded in 2025. Yet the Commission has identified a capability investment gap of €800 billion to be closed by 2030, implying annual spending increases of around 10% to reach approximately €575 billion per year, or 3.15% of combined GDP. The proposed 2028–2034 MFF allocates €115.7 billion to defence and space under the European Competitiveness Fund, or about five times the previous period, and €15.7 billion for military mobility under the Connecting Europe Facility, a tenfold increase.
Parliament’s sharpest institutional challenge concerns the SAFE instrument. Parliament explicitly calls on the Commission to refrain from applying Article 122 TFEU to any future defence-related initiative, the same provision used for SAFE’s €150 billion loan facility, on the grounds that it bypasses Parliamentary co-decision and prevents proper budgetary oversight. Parliament also criticises SAFE for allowing procurement contracts signed by a single Member State (by 30 May 2026) to be eligible, arguing this undermines the joint procurement rationale.
On the EIB, Parliament goes further than previous resolutions: it explicitly calls for the EIB’s mandate to be formally extended to include arms and munitions — limited to those not prohibited under binding international conventions — through a specialised subsidiary backed by Commission guarantees. The EIB mobilised €3 billion for defence in 2025, exceeding its own €2 billion target, and has allocated €13 billion since 2017, but Parliament considers this insufficient. The Defence Equity Facility, with a current budget of €175 million for 2024–2027, is called “entirely insufficient” and Parliament calls for it to be increased to €1 billion.
The military mobility resolution (C/2026/2152) is technically separate but forms a paired package. Its central finding is that military equipment could take more than one month to cross EU borders under current procedures — against NATO’s three-day operational planning timeline. The resolution calls for cross-border permitting for rapid reaction units to be reduced to 24 hours in a crisis, and calls for a digital one-stop shop for movement authorisations. A “military Schengen area” is formally requested, with the Commission asked to produce a roadmap. Key infrastructure concerns include 500 identified hotspots requiring urgent upgrading, track gauge differences affecting rail interoperability across the Baltic states, Finland, and the Iberian Peninsula, and ports not designed for military cargo.
On sustainability, 94% of the four priority military mobility corridors overlap with TEN-T infrastructure (Northern, Eastern, Central Southern, and Central Northern) meaning military and civilian investment needs largely align. The resolution explicitly acknowledges that fossil fuels in military transport will remain necessary through the decade, calling on the Commission to avoid applying decarbonisation rules in ways that undermine operational capability. Rail ERTMS deployment is flagged as a cybersecurity concern given its radio technology dependence.
