How the EU can support Europe’s NATO
- EU and strategic partners,
- EU institutional affairs,
- EU strategy and foreign policy,
- Europe in the World,
There is a paradox at the heart of European defence. Fundamentally, European states do not trust any scheme for harmonising defence planning and capability development that does not include the United States. Yet the reason why such harmonisation is necessary, is precisely because the US might not show up. The irony is that just as the focus of the European debate was shifting from the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) to a ‘European pillar’ in NATO, the US announced their intention to pull out its conventional capabilities, prodding Europe to take ownership of the conventional defence of Europe, under the American nuclear umbrella. Suddenly, there is no more time to debate – Europe has to act, and fast.
The operational dimension of the CSDP works: the EU does conduct military operations, though it could be more ambitious. But not a single EU member state really believes in the CSDP as a framework for defence planning and capability development. Yet for some reason, most want to pretend that they do. Thus, the EU Military Staff continues to run the Headline Goal Process, aimed at creating an army corps for expeditionary operations that everyone knows will never see the light of day, and the European Defence Agency keeps on updating the Capability Development Plan, which all are aware has zero influence on national defence planning. Knowingly setting pointless tasks: in the private sector, this is called harassment.
This paper was originally published by FEPS and the full text can be found on their website.
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