SAFE: Council clears path for financial assistance to eight member states and concluding the Canada agreement 16:42 The Council adopted a set of implementing decisions making[...]

The Council today adopted a set of implementing decisions making financial assistance under SAFE available to eight EU member states: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Spain, Croatia, Portugal, and Romania.

A second batch of Council implementing decisions concerning financial assistance for Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Finland has been cleared by EU ambassadors and is expected to be formally adopted by the Council on 17 February.

Today's decision follows the European Commission's positive assessment of the member states' National Defence Investment Plans. It paves the way for the first wave of affordable, long-term loans to be released by the Commission, which enables the participating countries to acquire modern defence equipment and boost their defence readiness.

SAFE is an EU financial instrument supporting member states that wish to invest in defence industrial production through common procurement, focusing on priority capabilities.

Financial assistance under the first wave of SAFE

Financial assistance under the second wave of SAFE (to be adopted on 17 February)

Agreement with Canada

In addition, the Council today adopted a decision authorising the EU to sign the bilateral agreement between the EU and Canada on the participation of Canadian companies and products originating from Canada in procurement under the SAFE Instrument. Canada will be the first non-European country to participate in the SAFE instrument.

After negotiations between the parties, the agreement had been preliminarily endorsed by the member states' representatives in Coreper on 19 December 2025.

Following the signature, the agreement can be provisionally applied. The agreement will only be formally concluded once the European Parliament has given its consent.

The text of the agreement will be soon available in the Official Journal of the EU.

Next steps

Following the adoption of the implementing decisions, the Commission will conclude loan agreements with the member states concerned and proceed with the disbursement of the pre-financing payments.

Background

The SAFE regulation was adopted on 27 May 2025, as part of 'Readiness 2030', an ambitious defence package designed to provide EU member states with financial levers to drive a surge in defence investments.

SAFE is an EU financial instrument supporting member states that wish to invest in defence industrial production through common procurement, focusing on priority capabilities. It will finance urgent and large-scale investments in the European defence technological and industrial base (EDTIB), with the aim of boosting production capacity, ensuring the timely availability of defence equipment, and addressing existing capability gaps.

Ukraine and EFTA/EEA countries will be able to participate in common procurement under SAFE, and it will be possible to buy from their industries. The same applies to Canda, which has concluded an agreement under Article17 of the SAFE regulation. Acceding countries, candidate countries, potential candidates and countries which have signed Security and Defence Partnerships with the EU may also take part in common procurement and contribute to aggregated demand.

Following the adoption of SAFE, the Commission launched a call for expression of interest to receive financial assistance under the instrument, inviting member states to indicate minimum and maximum loan amounts. By 29 August 2025, 19 member states had expressed interest.

The Commission approved the first wave of defence funding for eight member states on 15 January, and a second wave on 26 January.

• Council regulation establishing the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) through the Reinforcement of the European Defence Industry Instrument
• SAFE: member states endorse agreement on the participation of Canada (press release, 19 December 2025)
• Common defence procurement (background information)
• Security and defence (background information)
• European defence readiness (background information)
• Defence in numbers (background information)