Is the EU planning to seize savings from citizens' accounts to fund its new defence policy and armaments? No, that's not true: The EU plans to increase defence spending to deter potential Russian attacks and reduce military dependence on the United States, but the proposed ways of funding this policy do not include seizing citizens' savings.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok on March 9, 2025. The person in the video says in Czech, translated by Lead Stories staff:
Please think carefully, if you have money in the bank, I'm telling you that the European Union is now looking for ways to take people's savings and transfer them to weapons.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Mar 24 09:44:19 2025 UTC)
The person speaking in the video is Ladislav Vrabel, a known disinformer (archived here) who Czech courts previously sentenced for spreading false alarms; the Constitutional Court overturned the decision in March 2025, stressing that freedom of speech (archived here) must be protected even in the case of controversial statements.
The statement that the EU is planning to confiscate citizens' savings from their bank accounts to fund its defence policy or to use them to fund armaments is unfounded. The EU plans to increase defence spending (archived here) as a deterrent to protect its citizens and to make them less dependent on the US military. However, no evidence in publicly available sources and documents indicates that any EU representatives - or EU documents - mention measures such as confiscating EU citizens' savings.
On March 4, 2025, Ursula von den Leyen announced the ReArm Europe Plan (see screenshot below), an initiative designed to mobilize approximately 800 billion euros for European defence, and provide immediate military support to Ukraine.
(Source: EU Commission webpage screenshot taken on Wed Mar 26 06:32:19 2025 UTC)
The plan, which proposes measures such as giving member states more fiscal space for defence spending in their national budgets or allowing them to use EU funds for defence investments, is explained in detail here (see screenshot below). A search for the words "seize" or "confiscate" on the page did not bring any results.
(Source: EU Commission webpage screenshot taken on Tue Mar 25 09:30:19 2025 UTC)
A search through EU official webpages (archived here) for the following terms: "ReArm Europe" and "seizing citizens' savings" also did not bring any relevant results.
On March 19, 2025, the European Commission published another document about its new defence policies, the Joint White Paper for European Defence - Readiness 2030 (archived here), a framework about the new EU approach to defence that also identifies military investment needs. It includes steps such as coordination in defence procurement plans, enhancing industry responsiveness, strengthening cooperation with NATO, or simplifying the regulatory framework for arms producers. A search through the document for the phrase "seizing of savings" yielded no results.
A Google search for the phrase "EU plans to seize citizens' savings in banks to finance armaments" carried out on March 24, 2025, did not bring any relevant results related to the TikTok video's allegations (archived here). It revealed, though, another EU initiative, the Savings and Investment Union (see screenshot below), discussed here, for example (archived here) - concerning new options for citizens to invest their savings - which is not linked to the EU's new defence plans.
(Source: EU Commission webpage screenshot taken on Tue Mar 25 09:35:19 2025 UTC)
