{"id":6511,"date":"2026-08-13T03:15:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T03:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/6511\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T03:15:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T03:15:19","slug":"estonia-receives-first-e351-6-million-payment-under-safe-defence-instrument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/6511\/","title":{"rendered":"Estonia receives first \u20ac351.6 million payment under SAFE defence instrument"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On 12 August 2026,\u00a0Estonia received its first payment of \u20ac351.6 million under the\u00a0Security Action for Europe (<a href=\"https:\/\/defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu\/eu-defence-industry\/safe-security-action-europe_en#:~:text=Expression%20of%20interest%20to%20access%20loans%20through%20SAFE%3A\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SAFE<\/a>)\u00a0defence\u00a0instrument, representing 15% of its total allocation of \u20ac2.3 billion.<\/p>\n<p>SAFE is a \u20ac150 billion financial instrument providing loans to Member States. It primarily funds joint procurement of ammunition, missiles, air\u00a0defence, and ground combat systems produced within the EU. It is part of the European Commission&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/commission.europa.eu\/topics\/defence\/future-european-defence_en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ReArm Europe\/Readiness 2030 plan<\/a>, which aims to unlock over \u20ac800 billion in defence investment across the European Union.<\/p>\n<p>The pre-financing will help Estonia accelerate priority defence investments, strengthen resilience, and modernise its military capabilities in line with shared European goals. SAFE is designed to enable swift, co-ordinated action, improve the ability of European forces to work together, and strengthen Europe&#8217;s defence industry, including through joint procurement and closer cross-border co-operation.<\/p>\n<p>Andrius\u00a0Kubilius, Commissioner for Defence and Space said:\u00a0\u201cWith this first SAFE payment, we are helping Estonia move quickly on key defence investments and strengthen its readiness and resilience. We are moving fast and decisively to help Member States on the EU Eastern Flank. SAFE is about enabling Member States to invest faster, procure more effectively together, and reinforce Europe&#8217;s defence industrial base.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This pre-financing payment follows the completion of all required procedural steps and reflects the EU&#8217;s commitment to providing timely, practical support through\u00a0SAFE. Further payments will follow, as agreed milestones and implementation are met.<\/p>\n<p>The SAFE instrument\u00a0is financed by EU borrowing on the financial markets. This enables competitively priced and attractively structured long-duration loans to\u00a0requesting\u00a0Member States. The terms of\u00a0the\u00a0SAFE\u00a0loans benefit from the EU&#8217;s strong credit rating.\u00a0All SAFE loans will be repaid by the\u00a0beneficiary\u00a0Member States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On 12 August 2026,\u00a0Estonia received its first payment of \u20ac351.6 million under the\u00a0Security Action for Europe (SAFE)\u00a0defence\u00a0instrument, representing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14,143,52],"class_list":["post-6511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-defence-industry","tag-defence-policy","tag-defence-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}