BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union lawmakers voted on Tuesday to deepen integration of the bloc's defense industry with Ukraine as a U.S. peace plan remains in flux and Russia's unconventional warfare operations rattle the 27-nation bloc.
European Parliament legislators voted 457-148, with 33 abstentions, to approve a 1.5-billion euro ($1.7 billion) program, with 300 million euros ($345 million) slated for the Ukraine Support Instrument.
Raphaël Glucksmann, an EU lawmaker from France's S&D party, said that the defense program “will enable us to build a more resilient and sovereign Europe” through partnering with Ukraine to build a cutting-edge military industrial complex.
“This is key to making sure we can protect our democracies effectively and autonomously,” he said.
Ukraine's defense industry “needs us," EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius told EU lawmakers before the vote in Strasbourg, France, without mentioning the ongoing peace negotiations to end the war. “But we need Ukraine’s defense innovations even more.”
He said that allowing Ukrainian access to the EU’s Defence Investment Program “makes it possible to procure defense equipment in, with and for Ukraine.”
EU defense spending is expected to total around 392 billion euros (more than $450 billion) this year, almost double the amount of four years ago, before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
The Trump administration has signaled that it's prioritizing U.S. security on its own domestic borders and in Asia. It has told Europeans that they must fend for themselves and Ukraine in the future.
Born out of the carnage of the two world wars, the EU started as a trading bloc designed to avert conflict. But Russia's war in Ukraine has spurred a shift in the Brussels-based bloc, heightening its defense and security posture.
The European Commission, the EU's executive branch, believes that about 3.4 trillion euros ($4 trillion) will probably be spent on defense over the next decade. To help, it intends to propose boosting the EU’s long-term budget for defense and space to 131 billion euros ($153 billion).
“We shall be powerful geopolitically if we shall be strong in our defense, and we shall be strong in defense if we shall be strong in our defense industry, and if we shall be strong in our defense industry, we shall be industrially independent, autonomous and much less fragmented,” Kubilius said.
EU member countries are being urged to buy much of their military equipment within the bloc, working mostly with European suppliers — in some cases with EU help to cut prices and speed up orders. Under the road map, EU nations should only purchase equipment from abroad when costs, performance or supply delays make it preferable.
Kubilius said that EU-based defense companies can apply for tax breaks and other financial incentives to fund so-called European defense projects of common interest that “no member state can ever build alone, but that will protect the whole of Europe,” like Eastern Flank Watch, Drone Defense Initiative or Space Shield.
Permitting Ukrainian companies to participate in these projects “allows us to inject Ukrainian military innovation in the European defense industry,” he said.
Last week, the European Commission rolled out a new defense package to allow tanks and troops to deploy more rapidly across Europe as well as the EU Defense Industry Transformation Roadmap, which aims to simplify and unify regulations on the EU’s defense industry, and corral investment into domestic production of weapons, vehicles, satellites, shells and bullets.
Before the vote, Kubilius said that the defense program is meant to make sure big nations cannot seize territories of weaker nations.
“My country Lithuania was really a victim of such previous policies prevailing in the European continent,” he said, referring to the Soviet occupation of Lithuania for 50 years. "That is why I am for a strong Europe and a strong European defense industry.”
Ukrainian soldiers with the Kraken 1654 unit prepare a Vampire drone before a demonstration for The Associated Press, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are rushing higher worldwide, and oil prices are easing Wednesday as hopes build that the war with Iran could end soon. That's even though some of the signals investors saw as hopeful are already under dispute, and several prior bouts of optimism in financial markets quickly got undercut by continued, fierce fighting in the war.
The S&P 500 rallied 0.9% and added to its leap from the day before, which was its best since last spring. That followed even bigger gains for stock markets across Europe and Asia, including an 8.4% surge in South Korea, which were catching up to Wall Street’s rally from Tuesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 294 points, or 0.6%, as of 2:08 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.3% higher.
Oil prices also fell back toward $100 per barrel after President Donald Trump said late Tuesday that the U.S. military could end its offensive in two to three weeks.
That added to optimism following a couple tenuous signals of hope from earlier Tuesday that Wall Street latched onto, including a news report quoting Iran’s president as saying that it has “the necessary will to end the war” as long as certain requirements are met, including “guarantees to prevent a recurrence of aggression.”
The worry on Wall Street has been that the war may last a long time and keep oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf out of global markets, which could create a brutal blast of inflation.
But hope has been quick to reverse to doubt on Wall Street, triggering manic swings back and forth for financial markets since the war with Iran began. Trump has also made statements that lifted markets, only to see the gains quickly disappear after increasing his military threats.
Shortly before Wall Street began trading on Wednesday, Trump claimed in a post on his social media network that Iran “has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!”
“We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”
But Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, quickly called that claim “false and baseless,” according to a report on Iranian state television.
Oil prices also remain high, even if they’ve eased recently. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, was sitting at $101.51 following its declines, which is still up from roughly $70 before the war began.
U.S. gasoline prices rose again overnight to a national average of $4.06 per gallon, according to the auto club AAA.
Iran, meanwhile, hit an oil tanker off the coast of Qatar and Kuwait’s airport on Wednesday while airstrikes battered Tehran as the fighting continued. Iran also continues to hold a grip on the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes during peacetime.
“De-escalation hopes have given markets a lift, but we think the effects of the war would, in many cases, persist even if the war did end soon,” Thomas Mathews, head of markets, Asia Pacific at Capital Economics, said in a research note Wednesday.
“It’s worth thinking through how markets might fare if the war were to end ‘very soon,’” he wrote. “Do markets have further to recover if sentiment continues to improve? The answer is almost certainly yes.”
The White House said Trump will deliver a public address Wednesday evening on the Iran war.
On Wall Street, most stocks rose as Big Tech powered the move higher. Gains of 3.8% for Alphabet and 0.8% for Nvidia were two of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.
Eli Lilly climbed 5.1% after U.S. regulators approved its GLP-1 pill for weight loss.
Such gains have pulled the S&P 500, which sits at the heart of many 401(k) accounts, back to within 5.6% of its all-time high set early this year. Just on Monday, the index briefly neared a 10% drop from its record, a steep-enough fall that professional investors have a name for it: a “correction.”
Nike sank 14.5% even though it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. Analysts said it gave some lackluster financial forecasts.
Hasbro fell 4.8% after the toy company found someone had gained unauthorized access to its computer network and is working to assess the full impact.
Energy companies fell broadly as oil prices eased. Exxon Mobil slumped 5% and Chevron fell 4.9%.
In stock markets abroad, indexes leaped more than 2% in France and Germany. Asian markets had even bigger gains.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 5.2% after a survey showed business sentiment for major Japanese manufacturers improved despite worries about the Iran war.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady after a report said U.S. retailers made more money in February than economists expected. A separate report said U.S. manufacturing growth last month was slightly faster than economists expected.
The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.32% from 4.30% late Tuesday.
AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed.
James Conti works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Philip Finale works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A screen displays financial information on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
