NNA - Faced with the threat of an expansionist Russia, the European Union will Tuesday propose the joint financing of agreed common weapon purchases as is the case for ammunition.

"The threat of war may not be imminent, but it is not impossible," commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said last week, adding: "It is time for Europe to step up."

There was an "urgent need to rebuild, replenish and modernise member states' armed forces" after decades of trimmed budgets following the Soviet Union's collapse in the 1990s, she said.

The war in Ukraine has forced Brussels to innovate, and an EU defence strategy to be presented Tuesday by commissioner Thierry Breton borrows from some mechanisms already put in place.

These include the bloc's Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP), which according to Breton will swell the number of shells produced annually in the EU to two million in 2025 against a quarter of that figure when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

"We are doing it with artillery munitions, we must now be able to do it for all equipment necessary for our security," Breton said.

The commission will propose favouring common purchases of weapons made in the European Union.

That would change the scenario since the invasion of Ukraine, in which nearly 70 percent of arms bought by European nations and sent to Kyiv came from the United States, an EU official said on condition of anonymity.

An overall aim is to make up lost ground and see Europe's defence industry become as competitive as that of the US.

Brussels will suggest a European mechanism for arms sales similar to the US one.

The commission will also suggest creating a "catalogue" so that EU countries can be aware of what other members' defence industries can offer, the EU official said. -- AFP

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