More Europe on Defence or No Europe

Recent cuts in EU member states' defence budgets make it impossible to maintain adequate military capabilities at the national level. Only a greater European integration of the national armed forces can keep them effective and efficient. Some steps forward in this direction are possible, although difficult, on several levels: the implementation of the pooling and sharing approach on the military level; the establishment of the permanent structured cooperation on the institutional level; the definition of a European roadmap for dual-use technologies on the technological level; the launch of European procurement programmes co-financed by the EU on the industrial level. All these steps forward are linked to a urgent and basic political choice between two alternatives: more Europe in defence policy, or the complete inability of European countries to conduct such a policy.

Paper prepared by a team of researcher from the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) in view of the European Council on defence of December 2013.