The European Commission has approved the allocation of €500 million to increase ammunition production. This will allow the European defense industry to increase capacity and speed up the production of ammunition to 2 million shells per year by the end of 2025.
The commission has already selected 31 projects that should help increase production. They concern five directions: explosives, gunpowder, projectiles, rockets, and also include test certification. The projects will be financed by €513 million from the budgets of the EU and Norway. This funding will leverage additional investment from industry through crowdfunding, bringing the total investment in the supply chain to around €1.4 billion.
The program will support projects increasing annual production capacity by more than 10 000 tons of gunpowder and more than 4 300 tons of explosives.
The Commission also launched the European Defense Industry Strengthening Instrument for Joint Procurement (EDIRPA) Work Program and the fourth annual European Defense Fund (EDF) Work Programme. The total budget of these programs is almost €2 billion.
- On March 5, the European Commission presented the first-ever European Defense Industrial Strategy at the EU level, which provides for the close involvement of Ukraine.