BRUSSELS — European lawmakers on Friday advanced a long-stalled plan to let governments buy weapons together, a shift that supporters say could end a decade of fragmented national orders and the price premiums that come with them.
The compromise text, agreed late Thursday between the Parliament and negotiators for the member states, would allow groups of at least three countries to place pooled orders for ammunition, air-defense interceptors and uncrewed aircraft. Brussels would guarantee a share of the financing through a new facility, removing the need for each capital to find money upfront.
“For years we have paid more and waited longer because everyone wanted their own contract,” said Annelise Koopmans, the Dutch lawmaker who steered the file through the Parliament. “That ends with this vote.”
The plan still needs a final plenary vote and sign-off by ministers, but diplomats said the hardest questions had been settled. The most contentious concerned which products qualify: a late amendment requires that at least 65 percent of a pooled order's value originate inside the bloc or in Norway, Switzerland or Ukraine.
Industry groups welcomed the text while warning that the origin rule could slow deliveries of systems that rely on American components. Officials countered that the threshold was deliberately set below the level that would exclude most existing European platforms.
Analysts said the real test would come in the first orders. “The legal plumbing is done,” said Henri Delacroix of the Institute for Strategic Procurement in Paris. “Now someone has to be first to put a billion euros through it.”
A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 11, 2026, Section A, Page 15 of the European edition with the headline: E.U. Lawmakers Advance Sweeping Overhaul of Joint Defense Purchasing.
