Building EU Defense

The European Union’s long-awaited White Paper for European Defense, aimed at facilitating an unprecedented investment of €800bn ($865bn) by 2030, was published on March 19th by Andrius Kubilius, the Defense and Space Commissioner. While it outlines several areas of defense capability, it does not address member states' political will, which is crucial yet significantly lacking. There are three ways in which the EU can rectify this situation as it seeks to prioritize resources to achieve combat readiness against Russia by 2030.

Firstly, the EU should explicitly leverage NATO's capability gaps to guide its industrial priorities. Although the agenda of US President Donald Trump has been destabilizing, NATO remains the primary unifier for European defense collaboration, and the White Paper lacks a definitive statement of priorities. EU-level funding could boost nascent cooperation among member states in the production of artillery pieces and drones, and in the joint acquisition of tanker aircraft.

The progress on integrated air and missile defense, backed by the European Defence Fund, suggests that the bloc is well-positioned to incentivize the gradual development of other strategic enablers, such as airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft and military satellites. The US remains largely indispensable in these areas; while Europe has AEW planes built by Saab and approximately 40 military satellites, American forces possess around 300, demonstrating far greater capabilities.

Similarly, the White Paper correctly identifies military mobility as essential for ensuring that forces and heavy equipment can be rapidly deployed to potential conflict zones on NATO's (and the EU's) eastern flank. To achieve this, the bloc needs to prioritize the completion of urgent transport networks, such as the slowly expanding Rail Baltica, which connects the Baltic States.

Secondly, unlocking political will partially involves ensuring shared benefits from defense market integration. One difficulty with discussing common funding for EU defense, especially through debt creation, is that the largest and most industrialized member states stand to gain the most. It is advantageous that the EU is seeking to leverage its Investment Fund for defense innovation, but the bloc should also consider prioritizing the use of its Cohesion Fund for defense manufacturing. This would assist regional development in smaller and less industrialized members.

Brussels should concurrently assess the extent to which common investment in basic research and development might create a more equitable distribution of benefits across the EU. This would particularly benefit small- and medium-sized defense companies, which are typically reluctant to invest in research due to scattered and uncertain profits.

Thirdly, the EU should emphasize to European taxpayers the broader benefits of supporting Ukraine beyond merely halting Russian aggression. The Ukrainian battlefield offers real-time feedback on military innovation, such as adapting civilian drones into AI-powered vehicles for reconnaissance and air attacks, which could potentially save European lives.

The newly established EU Innovation Office in Kyiv is vital for matchmaking between defense developers and companies, with the bloc's defense technology and industrial base poised to benefit greatly from closer partnerships to develop high-tech weapons and mass-produce them.

As the EU incentivizes defense market integration, it must also regulate product standardization to ensure future weapons systems are interoperable. It has an important regulatory role to play in ensuring its industry manufactures defense products compatible with NATO standards. As the supply of artillery shells and field radios to Ukraine has revealed, defense product standardization is incomplete across Europe because NATO lacks enforcement mechanisms. However, the EU is well positioned to achieve this among new weapons systems, including by compelling the sharing of algorithms and data sets in high-tech cases.

Although there is a growing sense of urgency about European security, resistance to joint borrowing for defense remains strong, with national debates over budgetary allocations continuing. Leaders in Germany, France, Italy, and others face opposition parties resistant to further centralization of power in Brussels.

The White Paper addresses external military imperatives effectively, but the EU has yet to align these with its internal political and market logic. If this alignment can be achieved and member states fully commit, the opportunity to reduce European reliance on the US is greater than ever before.