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

NIB, the multilateral development bank owned by the eight Nordic and Baltic member states, signed a EUR 11.4 million 10-year loan with Metrosert AS, Estonia's national testing, calibration and certification body, to finance a new Drone Technology Unit within Metrosert's Applied Research Centre in Tallinn. The unit will house nine laboratories to develop, validate and industrialise unmanned aerial, ground and maritime systems, with most planned activity explicitly defence-related, covering unmanned aviation, communications, navigation, flight physics and hardware security. NIB financing at preferential development-bank rates functions as a below-market state-backed subsidy to a strategic dual-use research facility; the unit is targeted to be fully operational by summer 2027 as part of a EUR 42.9 million total Applied Research Centre build-out.

On 9 January 2026, Canada's Minister of Industry Mélanie Joly announced Defence Industry Assist (DI Assist), a CAD 244.2 million (~USD 178.6 million) funding and advisory initiative delivered through the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP). The programme funds high-potential Canadian SMEs developing made-in-Canada defence and dual-use technologies, with the stated aims of reducing barriers to market entry, connecting recipients to procurement pathways, and strengthening domestic supply-chain collaboration. It sits within Canada's broader Defence Industrial Strategy (CAD 6.6 billion over five years from 2025-26) and Canada's push toward its 2% NATO defence-spending target.

The European Investment Bank signed a EUR 100 million multi-beneficiary intermediated loan with Piraeus Bank SA on 18 December 2025 under the "Piraeus Bank L4SMEs Security & Defence" project (EIB ref. 20250612, approved 12 November 2025). At least 50% of the on-lent amount must go to SMEs and mid-caps active in Greece's security and defence sector, addressing constrained access to finance these firms face due to sector-specific sensitivities and dual-use classification. The EIB describes it as its first-ever financing in Greece dedicated to the security and defence sector, part of a wider Pan-EU Security & Defence Lending Envelope; Global Trade Alert separately logged the transaction (reporting the headline amount as EUR 200 million) as a "red"-flagged state-linked lending-support intervention.

The European Investment Fund (EIF), part of the EIB Group, and the European Commission announced a EUR 40 million (~USD 45.2 million) investment in Keen Venture Partners' European Defence and Security Tech Fund on 22 May 2025. The commitment is made under the InvestEU Defence Equity Facility (DEF), a EUR 175 million joint instrument (EUR 100 million from the European Defence Fund plus EUR 75 million from the EIF) created to close the equity-financing gap for early-stage European defence and dual-use technology companies through 2027. The Keen fund targets a final size of EUR 125 million and plans to back 20-25 early-stage startups across European NATO countries working on information superiority, cyber defence, robotics, AI, autonomous systems and space technologies. Global Trade Alert separately logs the transaction as a "red"-flagged state-linked financial-investment-support intervention.