Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The Council of the EU adopted Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/262, implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1529 concerning restrictive measures in view of Iran's military support to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. The listing adds 4 individuals and 6 entities to the EU asset freeze, bringing the total under this regime to 24 individuals and 26 entities. Newly listed entities include Fanavaran Sanat Ertebatat Company and front-company trader Sahara Thunder (UAV electronic components and guidance systems), and Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group, Khojir Missile Development and Production, and procurement firm Pishgaman Tejarat Rafi Novin Co. (ballistic missile manufacturing and propellant-precursor procurement). All funds and economic resources of the listed parties are frozen within the EU, and EU persons/entities are barred from making funds available to them.

On 8 December 2025 the Council of the EU gave final approval to Regulation (EU) 2025/2643 establishing the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP), the first dedicated EU defence-industrial regulation. The regulation was signed on 17 December 2025 and entered into force on 30 December 2025 following publication in the Official Journal. EDIP provides EUR 1.5bn in grants for 2025-2027 plus an earmarked EUR 300m Ukraine Support Instrument, sets a statutory cap limiting non-EU/EEA components to 35% of estimated component cost in end-products procured with Union funding, and creates EU-level demand-aggregation, common procurement and security-of-supply frameworks for defence products.

The European Investment Bank signed a EUR 450 million loan with Thales to finance the group's 2025-2027 research and development investment programme in aeronautics and radar. The aeronautics stream targets safety and efficiency improvements for civil and military flight; the radar stream funds modernisation of existing equipment and development of a new generation of civil and military radar systems and software. The EIB frames the deal as its first-ever corporate loan to Thales and one of the largest it has extended to Europe's security and defence sector, part of a EUR 3.5 billion (3.5% of 2025 financing) EIB Group allocation to security and defence.

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2003, adopted by the European Commission on 8 September 2025, published in the Official Journal on 14 November 2025 and entering into force on 15 November 2025, amends Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2021/821 to implement the 2024 multilateral decisions of the Wassenaar Arrangement, MTCR, Australia Group, and NSG. The most extensive EU semiconductor-equipment additions since the 2021 framework took effect: ALD, epitaxial deposition, lithography, EUV pellicles/masks/reticles, SEM, and etching equipment, plus tighter controls on quantum computers, advanced FPGAs/ICs for AI training, additive-manufacturing, and cryogenic/superconducting components. The regulation is the EU-side update layer of the Western dual-use export control architecture, structurally aligned with the US BIS advanced- computing/SME packages and the Netherlands DUV-licensing regime.

The European Investment Bank signed a EUR 385 million financing agreement with Spanish technology group Indra on 15 July 2025 to fund research, development and innovation in defence and space technologies — radar, electronic defence, electro-optics, command-and-control communications and advanced digitalisation. The financing backs construction of the Indra Technology Hub, an integrated R&D and advanced-manufacturing centre in Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid region), and covers Indra's planned 2025-2028 capital and operating expenditure in Spain. The EIB describes it as its largest financing agreement in Spain to date and part of a EUR 3.5 billion (3.5% of 2025 Group financing) EIB allocation to European security and defence capability-building. Global Trade Alert separately logged the transaction as a "red"-flagged state-linked lending-support intervention.

On 27 May 2025 the Council of the EU adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1106 establishing the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) through the Reinforcement of the European Defence Industry Instrument. Published in the Official Journal of the EU and entering into force on 29 May 2025, SAFE is the EU's flagship financial pillar of the ReArm Europe / Readiness 2030 plan: it provides up to EUR 150bn in competitively priced long-maturity loans — raised by the Commission on capital markets via NGEU-style EU borrowing — to Member States for joint procurement of defence capabilities. Funded equipment must meet a 65% EU/EEA/Ukraine local-content rule, and procurement must involve at least one SAFE-beneficiary Member State plus another Member State (Ukraine, EEA-EFTA members and SAFE-associated countries also eligible).

On 25 March 2025 the European Commission adopted the first list of 47 Strategic Projects inside the EU under Article 7 of the Critical Raw Materials Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1252), followed on 4 June 2025 by 13 Strategic Projects located in third countries — 60 designations in total. The 47 EU projects span 13 Member States and 14 strategic raw materials, with an expected EUR 22.5bn capital-investment envelope; the 13 third-country projects require a further EUR 5.5bn. Designation triggers fast-track permitting (max 27 months for extraction, 15 months for processing/recycling), preferential access to EU/EIB/EBRD finance, and Member State priority status, operationalising the CRMA's 2030 benchmarks (≥10% extraction, ≥40% processing, ≥25% recycling, ≤65% single-country dependence).

Council Regulation (EU) 2024/2897 of 18 November 2024 amends Regulation (EU) 2023/1529 (restrictive measures over Iran's military support to Russia's war against Ukraine and to armed groups in the Middle East and Red Sea region). It replaces Annex II with an expanded list of goods and technology whose sale, supply or export to Iran is prohibited where they could enable UAV or missile production, across ten technology categories, and adds Article 2a, a prohibition on transactions with the ports listed in Annex IV (Amirabad and Anzali). It entered into force on publication in the Official Journal.

The Council of the EU adopted Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2697, implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1529 concerning restrictive measures in view of Iran's military support to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. The listing adds 7 individuals and 7 legal entities to the EU asset freeze. The entities include three Iranian state and private airlines (Saha Airlines, Mahan Air, Iran Air) named as repeat carriers of Iranian-made UAVs and related technology to Russia, a UAV-procurement network (Basamad Electronic Pouya Engineering Co., Teyf Tadbir Engineering Company) run through EU-listed businessman Hossein Hatefi Ardakani, and two entities tied to Iran's ballistic-missile programme: Iran Alumina Company (IAC), Iran's sole producer of alumina powder used in solid rocket-fuel propellant, and Shahid Haj Ali Movahed Research Center, a missile R&D subsidiary of the EU-listed Shahid Hemmat Industries Group. All funds and economic resources of the listed parties are frozen within the EU, and EU persons/entities are barred from making funds available to them.

On 5 March 2024 the European Commission and EU High Representative jointly published the first-ever European Defence Industrial Strategy (EDIS) via Joint Communication JOIN(2024) 10 final. EDIS sets binding benchmarks for EU member-state procurement: ≥40% of defence equipment acquired cooperatively by 2030, ≥35% of defence trade conducted intra-EU by 2030, and ≥50% of EU-member defence expenditure directed to European-origin products by 2030 rising to ≥60% by 2035. The strategy is the programmatic framework underpinning EDIP (Regulation (EU) 2025/2643), EDF, ASAP and EDIRPA, and marks the first comprehensive attempt to embed defence industrial objectives into EU single-market and budgetary architecture.

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/66, adopted 21 October 2022 and published in the Official Journal on 11 January 2023 (OJ L 9), replaces Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2021/821 (the EU Dual-Use Recast Regulation) with an updated control list implementing the 2022 multilateral decisions of the Wassenaar Arrangement, MTCR, Australia Group, NSG and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Per GTA's tracking of the CN-code-level change, the update removed 7 six-digit CN codes and added 8 new ones. It entered into force on 12 January 2023, the day after publication.

On 16 December 2022 the Council of the European Union adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2022/2474, the 9th package of restrictive measures against Russia, amending Regulation (EU) 833/2014. It entered into force on publication the following day (17 December 2022). The package extends the prohibition on new EU investment from the Russian energy sector to the Russian mining and quarrying sector, bans exports of aircraft and drone engines and their parts to Russia (and to any third country that could re-supply drones to Russia), adds 168 entities to the sectoral export- control annex covering chemicals, nerve agents, night-vision and radio- navigation equipment, electronics and IT components, and prohibits EU advertising, market-research, product-testing and technical-inspection services to Russia. A parallel Council Decision/Implementing Regulation designated a further 141 individuals and 49 entities to the EU asset-freeze and travel-ban list.

On 6 October 2022 the Council of the European Union adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1904, amending Regulation (EU) No 833/2014, as the EU's eighth package of restrictive measures against Russia. It entered into force 7 October 2022. The regulation's headline measure creates the legal basis for an oil price-cap mechanism: a ban on maritime transport to third countries of Russian-origin crude oil and petroleum products, becoming operational once the Council sets an actual cap level by a separate decision (the G7/EU $60/bbl cap followed on 3 December 2022). The package also expands import bans on steel products (phased through 2024), firearms and ammunition, wood pulp and paper, and certain chemicals, cosmetics and jewellery materials; extends export bans on aviation-sector goods; bans the provision of architectural, engineering, IT-consultancy and legal advisory services to the Russian government and Russian companies; and imposes restrictions on Russian-flagged vessels at the Russian Maritime Register.

Regulation (EU) 2021/821, adopted 20 May 2021 and applied from 9 September 2021, establishes the Union regime for controlling exports, brokering, technical assistance, transit, and transfer of dual-use items, repealing Regulation (EC) No 428/2009. Annex I lists controlled items implementing internationally agreed dual-use controls under the Wassenaar Arrangement, MTCR, Australia Group, NSG, and Chemical Weapons Convention. The regulation introduces a new catch-all control on cyber-surveillance technologies that could facilitate human-rights violations (Art. 5 and Annex IV), and strengthens cooperation between Member States and the European Commission, placing specific obligations on exporters. It serves as the statutory anchor for all EU export licences, every multilateral-regime transposition into EU law, and coordination mechanisms with US BIS, UK ECJU, JP METI, and KR MOTIE export-control regimes.