REFILE-Belgian finance minister says favours 'making room' for EU defence investments

Fixes typo in headline

BRUSSELS, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem said on Monday he supports the idea put forward by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to "make room" for defence investments at a moment when European leaders seems excluded from talks between the U.S. and Russia to end the war in Ukraine.

"We are in an extraordinary situation, so we also need crisis solutions for that and definitely one of the possibilities there is the opening made by Ursula von der Leyen and the commission to also ... make room for defense investments within the European budgetary rules," he told reporters ahead of a Eurogroup meeting.

"We are very supportive to that idea. Of course we need to look how we are going to do it, but next to that we also need to look at other options (...) like the common European finance instruments or for example ... strengthening the position of the EIB (European Investment Bank) in that kind of investments in the European defence industry."