Speech by Commissioner Kubilius at the European Parliament plenary session on Defence Readiness Omnibus

For our defence readiness we often need more: More money. More production. More weapons. More equipment.  

But sometimes we need less: Less complication. Less restrictions. Less red tape. 

When it comes to regulating defence industry, as the saying goes, “less is more”.

So, I thank you for your provisional agreement with the Council on the defence readiness omnibus and the massive majorities in the committees, which show: we are as one, for the defence of Europe.  

When I started as Commissioner I called for a big bang in defence.

And in the last two years we created a big bang in financial resources. 150 billion in SAFE loans. 60 billion in Ukraine support loan for defence. Member States pledged trillions by 2035.

But for production ramp up, money alone is not enough.

As our friend NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte says: we are not at war, but not at peace either.

Ukraine shows: when war comes, you need to scale up very quickly.

Our goal: to keep peace on European continent. 

And to that end, we need to prevent war and deter aggression.

Our deterrence depends on speed. If we are slow and inefficient, Putin will not hesitate to test us.

That's why we are updating our peacetime rulebook for these dangerous times. And drastically cutting red tape for our defence industry, with the defence readiness omnibus.

This is the beginning of the simplification Big Bang in defence.

So I thank the rapporteurs: Lucia Yar, Henrik Dahl on fast track permitting. Pekka Toveri, Anna-Maja Henriksson on intra-EU transfers. Sven Mikser, Aura Salla on defence investment. I thank you and all the shadow rapporteurs.

I was there at every trilogue. We had good negotiations. A good result.

So thank you for doing a great job. A great job for Europe's defence readiness.

First, with new, simpler permitting rules.

In some Member States right now it can take industry four years to get a permit to build a new factory. So basically: if you ask for the permit now, you can – maybe – start building four years from now.