STEP, IPCEIs and the Alignment of EU Cohesion with Defence Technologies
The 2025 amendments to cohesion policy explicitly align EU structural funds with the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) and with Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs). Recital (11) states that investments contributing to STEP objectives, including advanced defence and dual-use technologies, should not face limits on ERDF contributions and should qualify for enhanced pre-financing. This change redefines cohesion policy as a catalyst for strategic technologies, encouraging Member States to allocate substantial portions of their cohesion budgets to critical innovation projects. By removing funding ceilings, the regulation enables regions to invest in high-value infrastructure such as R&D centres, pilot production facilities and innovation clusters. The intention is to ensure that local development policies are directly connected to Europe’s technological roadmap, reinforcing the Union’s ambition for strategic autonomy. Cohesion funding is thus repositioned from a purely redistributive mechanism to a driver of long-term industrial leadership.