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16 August 2024

European Union defence ambitions: a reality cheque

Ester Sabatino

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will begin in early September to select candidates for commissioners, including for an anticipated new dedicated defence position. The incumbent will face the Herculean task of reforming the continent’s still ineffective defence spending and underperforming defence-industrial base. How much power and financial clout the post-holder will have, or will hope to acquire, will help determine the extent of their success or failure over their five-year tenure.

Besides establishing a defence commissioner, von der Leyen’s goals for the 2024–2029 commission also include creating a European Defence Union to ‘support and coordinate efforts to strengthen the defence industry’.

Follow the money

A single market for defence remains von der Leyen’s vision, spelt out in her 18 July speech, but this long-sought goal has so far remained out of reach. A 2017 paper by the European Commission on the Future of European Defence noted that ‘systematic defence cooperation and integration … requires a true single market for defence’, but this call, nor previous others, resulted in marked progress. The cruel prompt of Russia’s brutal war of aggression in Ukraine may finally act as the required catalyst, and that is certainly von der Leyen’s hope.

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