Ministero dell'Economia e delle Finanze

Brussels, 11 March 2025 – Italy “cannot conceive of defence funding at the expense of health spending and public services”. This is what Giancarlo Giorgetti said today in Brussels during the Ecofin breakfast. The Italian Economy Minister emphasised that this hypothesis “would be unacceptable”, and added “that’s the reason why I have encouraged solutions at European level that would promote coordinated actions to improve defence”. According to Giorgetti, “we must also clarify the scope and duration of the safeguard clause, because most defence investments extend over many years and their impact on public accounts may become clear only in the long term”.

He adds that “we must also distinguish between the immediate needs related to the war in Ukraine and the EU’s long-term security strategy”. “We need to do an in-depth analysis of strategy followed by an implementation plan.” He also emphasises that “we have to think about the possibility of converting existing industries and at the same time develop new capacities and technological capabilities”. “Only then will the financing needs be clearly defined” he concluded. “Italy will do its part, but first we need to define what is necessary”. These issues were also outlined by the Minister at a dinner hosted last night by the Polish Presidency to take stock of the European defence, security and protection issue.

In his speech during the Ecofin public session, Giorgetti said that in order to close Europe’s investment gap in the defence and security sector “we need to significantly improve synergies between national and EU-level resources”. “We are therefore in favour of strengthening InvestEU for defence to increase its ability to attract private investors and its appetite for risk”. In this sense, he continues, we have developed the proposal for a “European Security & Industrial Innovation Initiative (EU-SII), also as an innovative framework to strengthen and scale up the Member State Compartment of InvestEU”, a multi-tranche guarantee fund that optimises the use of national and European resources, with the aim of channelling private capital more effectively. The Minister adds that “with limited public expenditure, a guarantee fund of around EUR 16.7 billion could mobilise up to EUR 200 billion of additional industrial investment” in line with the best practices of InvestEU and, earlier, the European Fund for Strategic Investments.
“The initiative we are proposing focuses on supporting the European technology base and industrial fabric in the strategic sectors of defence, dual-use technologies, critical supply chain protection, data and essential infrastructure”, explains Giorgetti.

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