The calls to enhance EU defence co-operation have become a constant refrain. Russian aggressiveness in Ukraine and the Baltics, the rise of mass migration and terrorism, conventional and cyber, and the threat by Donald Trump not to honour defence guarantees to Nato members, have all fed the drumbeat. Of EU states only Britain, Poland, Greece and Estonia currently meet the Nato spending target of at least 2 per cent of GDP on defence, while the US invests over twice EU member states' total defence spend.
Then there's the "plight" of Europe's €100 billion defence industry, which, the EU Commission warns, could fall behind the technology of global rivals without sustained investment by member states. "Only new common armaments' programmes will guarantee the survival of our defence industry," claims German CDU MP Michael Gahler. "What is missing are co-operative programmes," to eliminate inefficiencies, he says. The EU has 19 types of armoured infantry fighting vehicle, compared with one in the US. Wasted spending, the Commission says, amounts to €25 billion a year. And there's the trade threat from US business. "Boosting defence R&D in Europe is crucial to maintain critical competences and technologies," says Dirk Hoke, chief executive for Airbus Defence and Space – Airbus and Boeing are at daggers drawn in the World Trade Organisation over state subsidies.
Which imperative then – security or commerce – underpins the European Defence Action Plan, announced with great fanfare by the Commission on Thursday? Critics would suggest concerns about the first are a largely cynical cover for the latter. Nato’s non-EU allies might well also have reason to suspect this is about protecting EU industries – if not, why not a Nato initiative?
The Commission is proposing for the first time to invest in military research and assisting procurement – a €5 billion fund to let governments club together to buy new helicopters and planes to lower costs. And it suggests the common budget and its development bank invest in military research – proposing €500 million a year could be spent on innovation from 2021. Some states, such as Germany, with huge armaments industries, will benefit most from the new programme, which has yet to be approved by member states.
There’s nothing in the proposals that inherently undermines Irish or other states’ neutrality – we are not opposed to defence co-operation with allies and have a small industry of our own which may benefit. But the initiative, critics argue, marks a significant change in the character of the EU. “My understanding of the EU is that it is meant to be a peace project,” says Laëtitia Sédou, of the European Network Against Arms Trade, who dismisses the plan as no more than “subsidies to preserve the competitiveness of the arms industry and its capacity to export abroad.”