Mr. Jannik Knauer:

I will quickly reply to those two questions. On the first question about how to track where the money is spent as part of the SAFE loans, by the end of November, member states have to submit concrete plans. On the basis of these plans, there will be loan agreements between the EU and the member states taking the loans. There will be a mechanism that will allow the Commission to do ad hoc checks on where and how the money is spent. That will be the way to verify the concrete percentages on where the money is spent.

With regard to the second question as to whether member states will be able to purchase from the US and Israel, the Senator rightly pointed out there is the possibility for non-EU country components to be part of SAFE. Member states will not be able to directly purchase from the US and Israel in the current set-up. For that, there would need to be a security and defence partnership agreement and a bilateral agreement. We are currently entering into negotiations for those with the UK and Canada. However, it is possible that for procurements under SAFE, there can be components from third countries. That includes, of course, the US and Israel. The components will be up to this threshold of 35%, as it is currently.