The new European Commission will include the newly created portfolio of EU Defence and Space Commissioner
European Defense

On the new European Union Commissioner for Defence and Space

After much speculation, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has fulfilled her purpose - announced at the beginning of 2024 - of creating the post of Commissioner for Defence. The new post, which will actually go further, as Commissioner for Defence and Space of the European Union, is fraught with uncertainty due to doubts about the powers it will bring together, as well as possible overlaps and clashes with other commissioners - such as those for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy or Startups, Research and Innovation - and, of course, due to the person proposed for the post, the Lithuanian Andrius Kubilius, with a long political career and considered a "hawk" for his stance against Russia but who, in practice, has very little experience in defence. Index Introduction The mandate The new commissioner, a relative unknown (Un)expected movements and possible problems Conclusions Introduction After [Keep reading…]

European defense initiatives
Articles

Dictionary of European Defense Initiatives

In recent years, especially since the arrival of Donald Trump to power in the middle of the last decade, Brexit and the renewed Russian threat, materialized in the invasion of Crimea and the war in Donbas, have multiplied the number of European defense initiatives. Since PESCO, EDF and CARD came to light in 2017, the Twenty-Seven have launched other tools such as EDIRPA or ASAP, and proposed others such as EDIP. Added to previous ones, such as the CDP, they constitute, together, a hodgepodge of acronyms that very few are familiar with, despite their importance. The purpose of this focus is to shed some light on them, explaining their meaning and their role within the European construction in defense matters. However it is, although we try to lighten it, it is a topic [Keep reading…]

The European compass, which rarely points north
European Defense

The European Union and defense: moving in the wrong direction

The war in Ukraine, for many, represented a "before and after" in relation to the European construction in terms of defense. It has even been called a "tectonic moment" or February 24, 2022 has been equated with a kind of "European 11/XNUMX." It was a way of cataloging an event - in reference to the moment of the invasion - that made clear the miseries of the Twenty-seven as military powers or, rather, security actors, given the enormous deficits in terms of generating effective deterrence. ; ultimately the element that had finally decided Russia to launch its attack. The "before and after" thing actually came from the impetus given by the Member States to different community initiatives related to defense and, more precisely, to defense industrial policy (which already gives us a [Keep reading…]

French troops deploying to Romania as part of the NATO Response Force
European Defense

PESCO: the last chance

For the external observer, the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) is more equivalent to the long list of projects underway than to the 20 binding commitments, considered at the launch of this policy in 2017, as a before and after. At first glance, these 68 projects do not seem to pursue a single objective. Thus, it is worth asking, is the objective of PESCO clear even for those already initiated? In fact, it's not, and that remains the biggest obstacle to its success. At a time when a (second) strategic review of PESCO is being carried out, profound changes are required if it is to right its course. The objective of PESCO? Council Decision 2017/2315 establishing Permanent Structured Defense Cooperation (PESCO) stated that 'A long-term vision for PESCO could be to reach [Keep reading…]

Image taken from the press release in which the new European Defense Industrial Strategy (EDIS) was announced by the European Commission
European Defense

The EU's European Defense Industrial Strategy (EDIS)

A few days ago the European Commission and the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy presented the European Defense Industrial Strategy (EDIS) or, in other words, the new European Defense Industrial Strategy. A very ambitious proposal that aims to mark a before and after not only in terms of the development of productive capacities or the tools at the disposal of the European institutions to relate to the defense industrial sector, but also for its manifest desire to reduce participation American in the European defense market. Despite everything, it is still a proposal that still needs to be negotiated by the States and the European Parliament, which has very little chance of moving forward without changes and which hides some important errors, such as the fact of assessing its possible results only at through quantitative indicators. The [Keep reading…]

The Ukraine crisis has not served to make the European Union a strategic actor. Rather to demonstrate that Europeans still do not know what the exercise of power consists of.
European Defense

The exercise of power (3)

A year ago, the magazine “Ejércitos” published an analysis of the geopolitical context of that time under the title “The exercise of power (2)”. It indicated that the invasion of Ukraine was an event that consolidates the end of American hegemony exercised since the end of the Cold War. At the same time, although it may seem contradictory, the war has confirmed Washington's indispensable leadership role as guarantor of Europe's security and has shown its NATO allies that its protection remains linked to the umbrella of the United States. The European Union, despite all its plans and ambitions, would not have managed to achieve strategic prominence. The exercise of power (1) The exercise of power (2) The exercise of power (3) A good strategy never emanates from geopolitical sleepwalking The current international context of globalization, defined by the corresponding complexity resulting from high connectivity [Keep reading…]

Houthi helicopter attacking the Galaxy Leader ship in the Red Sea on November 20, 2023
European Defense

The European Union and the Red Sea: this is geopolitics

The European Union is preparing to launch a maritime operation aimed at protecting commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Its objective would be to protect civilian ships from attacks by the Yemeni Houthis. A welcome and necessary decision. Furthermore, and contrary to usual, it is not excessively late, since two months have passed since the attacks began. Many Europeans are unaware that what was once true for the British Empire is now also true for the European Union and the Red Sea. That is, the dependence on the maritime communication route that passes through the Suez Canal is a central characteristic of its geopolitical position. Not in vain, 30% of world container traffic passes through there and, in total, 12% of world trade. Now, and as a consequence of the crisis that [Keep reading…]

The European Union must rediscover geopolitics with all its consequences. Source - Euractiv.
Conflict

The war over Ukraine and the rediscovery of geopolitics

The essence of the war problem did not change due to the enormity of its scale. The line of the Central Powers from the North Sea to the Aegean and extending vaguely beyond even to the Suez Canal was, after all, no different from the line of a small army entrenched across an isthmus, with each flank resting on the water. As long as France was treated as an autonomous theater, a complete stalemate existed, and the front of the German invaders could neither be pierced nor diverted. But once the vision was extended to the entire theater of war, and that vast war was conceived as if it were a single battle, turning movements of a more momentous character were open to the Allies. Like many Allied leaders during World War I they could only see what they had [Keep reading…]

The EU-China relationship has changed drastically in recent years, after Brussels has gradually abandoned its initial naivety. Source - Café Evropa.
Conflict

The evolution of the EU-China relationship

The EU-China relationship has evolved in recent years, going from a European optimism based on erroneous premises and reinforced by the promise of great business that access to the Asian giant's market represents, to an increasingly pronounced skepticism, accentuated by the dependencies detected during the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. With the approval on June 30 of the Conclusions of the European Council on China, a new stage opens, in which Brussels aims to maintain a more balanced relationship, in which dependence is reduced to a minimum, trying to avoid breaking ties. economic as well as falling into a confrontation scenario. For a long time, the German principle of Wandel durch handel (change through trade) prevailed in the foreign relations of the European Union. The theory of the principle is simple and well known: as the [Keep reading…]

Dutch CV90 combat vehicles. Source - Ministry of Defense of the Netherlands.
European Defense

Let's recover the spirit of PESCO!

Five years after the launch of PESCO, and five waves later, it is the ideal time to consider whether the tool that we know in May 2023 corresponds to the one that its designers had in mind. More important than the above is the following question: is it the PESCO we want? The spirit of PESCO At this point it is undeniable that PESCO stands as one of the main tools in the hands of the Member States of the European Union in order to advance the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). A dynamic instrument: in the last five years, seventy-two projects have been launched - which could be considered a success - while progress has been made in fulfilling the most binding commitments assumed by the participating Member States (pMS) - although not to the desired degree. However, the [Keep reading…]