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1. A Member State may request financial assistance under the SAFE instrument (‘financial assistance’) for activities, expenditures and measures aimed at addressing the crisis situation referred to in Article 1. Those activities, expenditures and measures shall be related to defence products or other products for defence purposes and carried out through common procurements conducted in accordance with the eligibility rules set out in Article 16 and shall aim to:

(a) speed up the adjustment of the defence industry to structural changes, including through the creation and ramp-up of its manufacturing capacities as well as related supporting activities;

(b) improve the timely availability of defence products, including through the reduction of their delivery lead time, reservation of manufacturing slots or stockpiling of defence products, intermediate products or raw materials; or (c) ensure interoperability and interchangeability across the Union.

2. A Member State may use financial assistance under the SAFE instrument in synergy with Union programmes in accordance with the rules of those programmes. Financial assistance under the SAFE instrument may also be used to finance activities which have received a Union contribution under a Union programme.

3. By derogation from paragraph 1 of this Article, procurements carried out by one Member State shall be eligible for support under the SAFE instrument where a procurement contract was signed no later than 30 May 2026. Where a Member State includes such a procurement in the plan referred to in Article 7(2), it shall actively take all necessary steps to extend the benefit of the contract concerned to at least one additional Member State, one EEA EFTA State, or Ukraine, in addition to any interested acceding country, candidate country, potential candidate, or other third country with which the Union has entered a Security and Defence Partnership. Eligibility conditions established in Article 16(2) to (14) shall apply mutatis mutandis.