The European Commission on Thursday approved the disbursement of over €1 billion to Cyprus as part of its Security Action for Europe (Safe) programme.
In total, Cyprus will receive exactly €1,181,503,924, while 18 other European Union member states are also in line to receive funding as part of the €150bn allocated by the commission to the programme earlier this year.
Poland will receive the most of any member state – a whopping €43.7bn – while Romania and France will receive just over €16bn each. Greece is set to receive a little less than Cyprus, having been allocated a little less than €788m.
The Safe programme foresees that EU member states and allies will join forces to carry out “common procurements” for military hardware, with it envisioned that at procurements will be carried out by at least two participating countries on any given occasion.
All EU member states qualify for the Safe programme, as well as Ukraine, the four European Economic Area States – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland – and as six other countries which have signed common defence agreements with the EU – Albania, Japan, Moldova, North Macedonia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, which signed an agreement with the EU in May.
The Cypriot government had given the EU formal notice of its intention to participate in the Safe programme’s common procurement instrument while officials from the EU’s directorate-general for the defence industry and space (DG-Defis) were visiting the island in July.
The defence ministry’s procurement director Panayiotis Hadjipavlis had said in July that the government was “in contact with very friendly member states”, including Greece, over the matter, “so that we can find common programmes and thus proceed with joint procurement”.
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