A European Defence Union by 2025?
Work in progress
In this policy overview Katarina Engberg, senior advisor at SIEPS, investigates the likelihood that a European Defence Union will be created by 2025, the proclaimed goal of the European Commission. The overview combines an inventory of current and evolving elements of the EU’s defence policy with a framework for understanding the drivers behind a potential European Defence Union.
Summary
This analysis investigates the likelihood that a European Defence Union will be created by 2025, the proclaimed goal of the European Commission, now with a new Directorate General for Defence Industry and Space (DG DEFIS) at its disposal. It does so by combining an analytical framework for understanding the drivers behind a potential European Defence Union with an inventory of current and evolving elements of the EU’s defence policy, the ‘D’ in Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
The European ambition, in view of a deteriorating security situation, to take on a greater responsibility for European security will affect both the EU and NATO, part of the same institutional web. The arrival of the Biden Administration could open up a window of opportunity for regulating some thorny transatlantic issues, as Asian security was moving up the European agenda.
Pragmatic progress will be noted as well as deficiencies. Emphasis will be given to elements of importance for defence: 10 billion new euros allocated in the EU's budget, the evolution of defence planning, encompassing threat analysis and the meaning of Article 42(7) in the Lisbon Treaty, which evokes solidarity in case of armed attack. Insufficient operational commitment, few collaborative procurement projects and lack of strategic enablers remain European weaknesses.
The EU’s ambition to establish a combined Security and Defence Union, albeit often crude and work in progress, covers a vast and growing field of what could be called ‘total defence’. It ranges from societal security via crisis management to defence proper. It is suggested in the overview that the EU calls out defence more clearly, now shrouded under the cover of external crisis management and industrial policy.
Implementing the many new defence initiatives will keep the EU busy for the next couple of years. The proclaimed Defence Union of 2025 could thus amount to the mere accumulation of pragmatic progress, or result from jolts produced by political initiatives or/and external challenges. This paper can hopefully offer the reader a roadmap for assessing the evolution of these issues over time.