Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 15 October 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach
Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals
2:00 am
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
I ask the Commission representatives their views on an issue we discussed earlier, which I think is a workaround, although I know the Commission will have a different view. I refer to the complete ban on using the EU budget for military and defence purposes. If I sit down with my 15-year-old children and tell them that Europe is potentially giving €150 billion in loans to increase munitions capabilities, and that we have another Act supporting ammunition production which is worth €500 million, they will say that is a bit of a workaround. I do not expect the Commission representatives to say that it is a workaround but what is the Commission's view of the Bundestag's reading of this? A Bundestag committee has questioned the legality of what is being proposed under this programme in the context of conflicts with Article 41.2 of the Treaty on European Union. Does the Commission have any concerns with the fact that the Bundestag has offered that opinion? What would they say to people like me and many others, including members of the Bundestag, who have a view that what the EU is doing here is trying to find a way around the articles of the TEU to actually fund the militarisation of Europe using EU funds, which is banned under the treaty? We have a kind of workaround which says we are giving grants to companies. We are saying that we are not procuring but are just increasing the capabilities but, at the end of the day, it is the same result.
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