The next step for European defence cooperation

On November 18th 2014 the EU Defence Ministers, chaired for the first time by the new High Representative Federica Mogherini, will meet to discuss the future for European defence cooperation. On the agenda is the development of collaborative military capabilities and the coming European Council Summit in mid-2015, where European heads of state once again put common defence on the top-level political agenda.

At the December 2013 European Council summit EU heads of states discussed defence cooperation for the first time since 2008, and committed themselves to launch a systemised process, where European leaders and EU institutions work on solutions to empower the EU’s common and security policy (CSDP) over the new few years. This task, however, is not easy. The political case for defence in the EU member states has gotten weaker after the financial crisis, and EU military cooperation has long been a difficult project where EU member states often disagree about the strategic vision for CSDP in terms of ends, means and tools.

This policy brief by Christine Nissen addresses how EU member states and key EU institutions can improve EU defense cooperation in a number of areas based on the priorities and tasks launched at the December 2013 summit.