European Defense Policies
Addressing the New Security Imperative
In the face of growing geopolitical uncertainties, there is widespread demand for the European Union to do more to ensure the security of its citizens. But what are the priorities, and what strategies should be pursued?
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In a more dangerous and unstable world, Europe must thus prepare for war to maintain peace and its security: as Vegetius noted, si vis pacem para bellum. However, increasing budgets is not enough if the EU does not address key strategic questions.
We must be realistic about the level of structured cooperation we can expect to be able to achieve with the EU in the immediate term. But we should be ambitious
Remarks by Sir Jonathan Faull, Chair of European Public Affairs, Brunswick Group.
The foreign policy landscape is shifting fast, and it is time to overcome the post-Brexit- mutual diffidence.
The discussion explored practical ideas around the process of establishing a broad and deep partnership between the United Kingdom and the European Union in the areas of foreign, security, and defence policy.
Identifying the appropriate level of spending is difficult and there is not really any science about this. This is because different considerations play a role, including military strategy to political psychology.
While defense procurement and production remain fragmented across Europe and the EU and its member states invest less in their security and defense than the US, new EU and EU-sponsored initiatives demonstrate that Europeans are aware of this and attempt to reduce these shortcomings – political and fiscal obstacles notwithstanding.
Defense expenditure in EU members rose by 50% (net of inflation) between 2015 and 2023, with an increase in the expenditure-to-GDP ratio (Figure 2, referring to the current EU members). The increase involved all EU members, including not NATO members during the period under consideration.
The latest European Defence Industrial Strategy outlines a commitment to support investments by Member States and the European defence industry in the development and market introduction of cutting-edge defence technologies and capabilities.
EU firms should be able to satisfy a large share of the increases in defence expenditure that are required immediately to support Ukraine and also those in the medium and longer-term
The EU-sponsored Eurobarometer polls routinely estimate support for EU defence integration between 70% and 80% of respondents, while a recent poll by the independent Bertelsmann Stiftung polling branch, Euopinions, returned a 87% support level. However, the devil is in the details: what is meant by “European defence policy” can wildly differ between people, and these simple questions present no trade-offs.