Poland's finance minister has said that the European Commission's ReArm Europe defence plan is now a top priority for his country's presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Andrzej Domański said the aim of the Polish presidency is now to "finalise work on the package urgently".
EU finance ministers were meeting for a second day in Warsaw and spent the morning discussing how member states can put the commission's defence spending proposals into action.
The meeting follows key summits in Brussels last month when all 27 member states backed the ReArm Europe plan.
The plan proposes unlocking up to €800 billion for defence spending across the bloc over the next four years, mostly by loosening EU deficit rules for defence projects.
European Commissioner for Economy Valdis Dombrovskis said the commission today asked member states to request an activation of their national escape clause within the Stability and Growth Pact by the end of April.
This would exempt member states from meeting the bloc's normal deficit rules and enable them to boost defence expenditure.
"A large majority of member states are considering triggering this clause," said Mr Dombrovskis, who added that it is intended that member states could start using the funding procedure by July.
A key component of ReArm Europe is a private loan mechanism, which would enable member states to borrow up to a combined amount of €150bn from the capital markets, a sum that would be backed by the EU's budget.
The loans are intended for defence investment projects in the areas of ammunition and missile production, drone technology and cyber security.
Ministers also discussed the findings of a paper on defence spending by independent think-tank Bruegel, which is understood to propose a central EU fund called the European Defence Mechanism.
The paper outlines that member states would pay fees to use defence equipment purchased by the fund as an alternative to paying back debt via their national budgets. This option could prove popular with economies that already have high current public debt levels.
Mr Domański said the paper offered "food for thought" for further discussions.
Earlier, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe told RTÉ News that Ireland was in a position to fund its current defence budget from the country's own taxation plan, indicating that Ireland would not borrow via the private funding mechanism for defence investments.
"Fortunately, we're in a position that the defence needs that we have, we are able to meet out of the tax revenue that we collect in Ireland," said Mr Donohoe.
However, he said that Ireland supported the commission's proposed measures to help other member states with their security budgets.
