EU defense to be financed nationally in short term, Donohoe says

European Union member states will finance their defense needs individually in the short term, though there may be bloc-wide instruments in the longer term, according to Eurogroup President Paschal Donohoe, Report informs via Bloomberg.

“There are many different views in relation to how defense expenditure can be funded,” he told Bloomberg Television on Monday. “My own judgment is that at least in the short-term, this will come out of national decisions that ministers take.”

Speaking ahead of a Eurogroup meeting of euro-area finance chiefs on Monday, Donohoe said that “the new economic governing framework — that’s the new budget rules for the EU — do give particular recognition to defense expenditure.”

“In the medium- to long-term if we are to get to the point of new instruments, we have to be able to show that our current agreement in relation to Next Generation EU, the new debt in relation to that, is working in the way that it was intended,” he said. “I’m optimistic we will be able to show that is the case.”