“Security for Whom?” CSOs call EU leaders to move the money from the military to human security

Ahead of the European Council held on 18 & 19 of June, where leaders will discuss the next EU budgetary cycle, civil society organisations from across the spectrum urge EU decision-makers to reject the military budget surge and invest in human security instead

Open Letter initiated by TNI, ENAAT, Stop ReArm Europe

17 June 2026

Dear Heads of States and Governments,

In the run-up to the next European Council taking place this week, at which you will discuss the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF 2028–2034), with a view to reaching a final agreement by the end of the year, civil society representatives from across the spectrum are calling on you to oppose the EU’s military budget surge and ensure taxpayers’ money is invested in what truly protects people: health, housing, education, human rights, peacebuilding, the environment, and social welfare. In short, the next EU budget should prioritise human security, not increased military spending or unchecked support for business.

On 14 June, over 12,000 people demonstrated in Brussels, calling for “Welfare not Warfare”. The following day, more than 70 representatives of grassroots movements, national and European CSOs and NGOs, trade unions, and experts on peace, climate, health, social justice and human rights met to discuss the impact of rising military budgets on public policy and people’s lives. They raised alarm about budget shifts at both national and EU level, discussed alternative budget allocations, and are calling on you to halt the drastic increase in EU military spending. Instead, they urge you to preserve and earmark civilian funds for the urgent challenges facing people in Europe and beyond: environmental polycrisis¹ (e.g. climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution), rising poverty, discrimination and inequality, including in access to public services ranging from education to healthcare and housing.

The proposed Competitiveness Fund under the 2028–2034 MFF would allocate €131 billion to armament and space, around five times more than in the previous budget cycle², while dedicated health and environmental spending is being removed, and the European Social Fund³, the Cohesion policy and the Common agricultural policy are facing cuts. Additionally, EU civilian and regional funds are increasingly being diverted for military purposes under the current MFF⁴, a trend that will intensify under the next MFF with easier access for the arms industry to other civil funding pots⁵. This comes on top of the sharp rise in military spending at national level, which in many EU countries goes hand in hand with austerity measures, cuts to public services and the welfare state, and efforts to attract private investment into essential services.⁶

Moreover, under the banner of “simplification”, the EU is stripping away oversight and restrictions on the development, production and sale of weapons and military technology, to the benefit of an industry whose products are already being used in wars, genocide and human rights abuses around the world.⁷

We call on Members of the European Parliament and EU governments to: 

1. Reject the proposed €131 billion defence, security and space envelope in the 2028–2034 MFF and halt the militarisation of the EU budget.
2. Redirect EU resources towards human security, e.g. public health, housing, education, care, environmental and climate action, anti-poverty measures, anti-racism, equality, active citizenship, peacebuilding and international cooperation.
3. Protect civilian EU funds from military capture, including cohesion, home affairs, regional development, research, international cooperation, environmental and social funds. EU money intended for social, environmental or regional goals must not be diverted to arms companies.
4. Create a binding human rights, environmental and due diligence exclusion framework for EU funding, preventing public money from going to companies involved in war crimes, occupation, repression, genocide, environmental destruction or serious human rights abuses.
5. Increase EU funding for diplomacy, mediation, peacebuilding and support for civil society, rather than prioritising military procurement and arms production.

To illustrate our demands and be concrete, the proposed €131 billion defence, security and space envelope under the 2028–2034 MFF could instead finance… 

• • …around 1,5 year of the EU’s annual energy-sector climate investment deficit⁸ (87bn/year), or more than one year of the EU’s building-related climate investment deficit (€120bn/year)⁹

• • …nearly 30 times the EU4Health programme’s current 2021–27 budget¹⁰

• • …more than two years of the EU’s social and affordable housing investment gap¹¹

• • …almost 12 years of the additional investment needed to meet the EU’s 2030 childcare targets.¹² (11bn/year)

• • …more than 13 times the combined budget allocated in 2021-2027 under the international cooperation thematic lines for peace, human rights, civil society & global issues as well as for the EU Rapid Response Actions¹³

• • …more than five times the minimum €25 billion humanitarian aid budget that civil society is calling to secure for 2028–2034¹⁴

These are not abstract trade-offs. They affect the childcare places, hospital waiting times, housing costs and energy bills your constituents face every day. Every euro locked into this seven-year envelope is a euro not invested in the services your constituents are asking you to protect.

More military spending will not solve our social, economic, environmental, and political problems.¹⁵ On the contrary, it deepens them: by diverting labour power and financial resources, entrenching authoritarian politics, and fuelling arms races which in turn lead to conflicts, human rights violations, and displacement.

The world’s militaries are already estimated to produce around 5.5% of total global greenhouse gas emissions¹⁶. Increased military spending will accelerate environmental destruction and will further lock Europe into a dangerous fossil fuel dependency, negatively impacting our energy security.

The next EU budget is an opportunity to choose a different path, one rooted in democracy, diplomacy, peacebuilding and conflict prevention, social justice, protection of human rights, environmental security and investment in human dignity. A 2018 UN-World Bank report showed that every €1 invested in peacebuilding can save €16 in costs due to conflict.¹⁷ A 2024 IMF study found that every $1 spent on conflict prevention saves up to $103 in potential costs for humanitarian and securitised interventions.¹⁸ Investing in social spending, fighting poverty, and reducing inequality is also the most effective way to counter the rise of the far-right.¹⁹

By working towards this, you will live up to the promise of a project that has long been presented as a peace initiative aimed, among others, at preventing a new arms race between rival military powers and at enabling everyone to live in dignity.

We urge you to use any opportunity to reshape the MFF before agreement is reached at the end of the year. We call on you to ensure that the next EU budget protects people and the planet, rather than locking Europe into a future of militarisation, austerity and insecurity.

Thank you for your attention. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to discuss this matter further.

Sincerely yours,

The Transnational Institute (TNI)

European Network Against the Arms Trade (ENAAT)

Stop ReArm Europe

Arci – Italy

Association of Greek Conscientious Objectors 

Attac Austria

Attac Spain

Centre Delàs d’Estudis per la Pau – Spain

Centro Pace ecologia e diritti umani – Rovereto, Italy

Counter Balance

Coordination Nationale d’Action pour la Paix et la Démocratie (CNAPD) – Belgium

Corruption Tracker

Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)

Debt for Climate

DiEM25 in Netherlands

European Bureau for Conscientious Objection to military service (EBCO-BEOC)

European Council on Refugee and Exiles (ECRE)

Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice

EuroMemo Group 

European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN)

European Women’s Lobby

International Peace Bureau (IPB)

Inštitút ľudských práv Human Rights Institute – Hungary

Kerk en Vrede – Netherlands

Lex Innocentium 21st Century  – Ireland

Lista Civica Italiana – Italy

Nonviolent Peaceforce

Observatoire des armements – France

Ohne Rüstung Leben – Germany

Palestine Solidarity Cluj-Napoca – PS.CJ – Romania

Peace Direct

Privacy International

Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA)

Rete Italiana Pace Disarmo – Italy

Salud por Derecho – Spain

Socialist Vision – Romania

SOLIDAR

Statewatch

StopElbit – Belgium

Stop Rearm Europe – Italy

Stop Wapenhandel – Netherlands

Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society – Sweden

UAntwerp for Palestine – Belgium

Vrede vzw – Belgium

Vredesactie – Belgium

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Austria (WILPF Austria)

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Germany (WILPF Germany)

World BEYOND War

Notes

1 https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/environmental-outlook-on-the-triple-planetary-crisis_257ffbb6-en/full-report.html

2 https://www.tni.org/en/publication/military-and-related-spending-in-the-mff-2028-34-proposal

3 https://easpd.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Policy_Papers/JointStatement_Building_on_What_Works.pdf

4 https://www.tni.org/en/publication/eu-military-spending-until-2027

5 https://www.tni.org/en/publication/military-and-related-spending-in-the-mff-2028-34-proposal

6 For example https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/finland-spend-32-gdp-defence-by-2030-despite-austerity-2026-04-23/; https://www.reuters.com/business/new-dutch-government-plans-freedom-tax-fund-defence-spending-2026-01-30/ ; https://www.reuters.com/world/french-pm-stakes-political-survival-budget-squeeze-2025-07-15/

7 See for example https://www.tni.org/en/publication/partners-in-crime-EU-complicity-Israel-genocide-Gaza; https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/11/sudan-french-manufactured-weapons-system-identified-in-conflict-new-investigation/; Report of Delàs Center, ECP and IDHC: Arms trade, conflicts and human rights. Analysis of European arms exports to countries in armed conflict and human rights violations (2020); https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20171127IPR88940/yemen-meps-renew-their-call-for-an-eu-arms-embargo-against-saudi-arabia

8 https://www.i4ce.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/The-State-of-Europes-Climate-Investment-2025-edition_V2.pdf

9 ibid

10 https://health.ec.europa.eu/funding/eu4health-programme-2021-2027-vision-healthier-european-union_en

11https://pes.cor.europa.eu/article/affordable-housing-needs-europe-europe-needs-affordable-housing

12https://op.europa.eu/webpub/empl/esde-2024/chapters/chapter-3-3-1.html

13 https://international-partnerships.ec.europa.eu/funding-and-technical-assistance/funding-instruments/global-europe-neighbourhood-development-and-international-cooperation-instrument_en

14 https://eplo.org/eplo-publications/joint-call-ensuring-that-the-global-europe-regulation-strengthens-the-eus-ability-to-address-fragility

15 https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-italy-stateless/2023/11/d4d111bc-arming-europe.pdf

16 https://www.tni.org/en/publication/climate-collateral-2pagebriefing

17 https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/4c36fca6-c7e0-5927-b171-468b0b236b59

18 www.imf.org/en/publications/wp/issues/2024/12/17/the-urgency-of-conflict-prevention-a-macroeconomic-perspective-559143

19 e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348931106_Welfare_state_policies_and_far_right_party_support_moderating_%27insecurity_effects%27_among_different_social_groups_West_European_Politics_-pre-proof_version; Klein M. – The Political Costs of Austerity.pdf