With EUR 70bn by 2027, the EIB is supporting the growth and competitiveness of innovative start-ups and ReArm EU. An attempt to close the gap with the US on both fronts
Despite the latest news that seemed to stop ReArm EU, the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group went ahead and approved EUR 9.1 billion of new funding to strengthen Europe’s security and defence, technology leadership and critical infrastructure.
Operations also included the finalisation of the plan for the TechEU Platform, an EIB initiative under the EU’s Competitiveness Compass, launched to support the growth and competitiveness of European technology start-ups. The platform’s main objective is to facilitate access to finance for innovative start-ups, particularly in the deeptech sector, i.e. those companies developing advanced technologies with a high research and development content: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, clean technologies and digital health.
The aim of the TechEU Platform is not only to strengthen European technological competitiveness. The initiative also aims to support the green and digital transition and create a fairer and more prosperous European innovation ecosystem by reducing the gender gap and fostering diversity.
The platform should be operational by the end of 2025, with a budget of around EUR 70 billion to be invested by 2027. A platform, therefore, that will serve to bridge Europe’s investment gap with the US, with a focus on projects from idea to IPO and exits that are often made from non-EU countries.
“This is the largest programme ever to exclusively support European innovation and technological leadership,” EIB Group President Nadia Calviño told Handelsblatt.
In this article, we explored the plans envisaged by ReArm EU and the concept of dual use. The TechEU Platform fits precisely into this context. In a recent interview, Gelsomina Vigliotti, Vice-President of the EIB, had herself declared: ‘The world has changed. And we didn’t want that. Operators in the economy know that there will be more geopolitical tensions. Within this framework, defence investments are crucial. And today defence investments are mainly investments in new technologies. We as the European Bank will play our part’.
Almost a month after the historic vote of the Legal Committee of the European Parliament in which it declared Ursula Von Der Layen’s rearmament plan illegal and ruled its approval procedure through Article 122 of the European Treaty illegitimate, the strategy seems to be gaining strength.
The EIB would thus be expanding its scope in both defence/security and technological innovation in parallel. The ReArm Europe, presented by the Commission in March 2025, with over EUR 800bn for defence, envisaged greater EIB involvement, but now the governance and allocation of these funds are still subject to political and legal debate, especially after the rejection of the fast-track procedure under Article 122 TFEU by the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs
In addition, the EIB has recently updated its rules for financing SMEs in the security and defence sector, precisely in order to open up dedicated credit lines to a large number of small businesses and innovative start-ups that need financing for dual-use projects (projects that meet both civil and military needs). The TechEU Platform thus fits into a broader context of strengthening the innovation ecosystem, which also includes the dual-use sector.
The current European strategy therefore envisages a multiplication of financial instruments and greater integration between defence, security and technological innovation. The EIB is a central player in this phase, broadening its mandate towards both defence and technological leadership, with a focus on dual-use projects and innovative start-ups. (photo by Carl Campbell on Unsplash)
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