The European Union has seen full authority on defence matters being attributed to itself over the last twenty years. Various Treaties have established the architecture and components of a future European defence, and have also established the “missions” and the organisations. These elements have been sufficient to ensure that the EU has developed operational capacity since the very early years of this new century, which has resulted in a certain number of “European common defence” policy operations, particularly in the Balkans, Africa and the Middle East, not large operations but very successful.

However, European defence continues to be in its early stages. Commands, budgets, forces and arms policies – the key components – are still exclusively under the authority of the individual nation states. Only very tentative steps have been made towards creating a common operational capacity. Whereas the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 seemed to have provided the foundations for decisive progress in this direction, very little seems to have subsequently happened.

But now steps towards a Europe-wide defence policy seem to be facilitated by certain favourable circumstances. The most evident of these is the tightening of the defence budget: all European countries are being required to strictly discipline their budgets. This means substantial cuts to public expenditures, and military budgets look like natural candidates. When looking at these budgets more closely, it can be seen that military expenditure is spiralling due to excessive costs. Since such budgets are decided strictly at a national level, there are overlapping, increased costs and little competition. Cuts to the national budgets can be compensated by the advantages of pooling the resources of individual nations into a common European ‘pot’.

Another incentive is in the current reorganising of the military forces. Their missions fit badly with the structure of those forces which – a legacy of the Cold War – are arranged in large units conceived for the defence of national territories. Since there is no direct threat to the safety of European countries, these forces are expensive and superfluous. European safety is currently a matter of defence most of all: it is necessary to avoid that conflicts or tensions in sensitive areas outside Europe bring destabilising effects into the European continent. The European military forces are therefore largely used for “outside of area” actions, and thus for peace-keeping operations or reconstruction and humanitarian assistance outside the boundaries of the EU. These operations require new military capacities that can be easily deployed and quickly take action. Such actions are normally decided on by the European Union. The military capacities should be increasingly developed and managed jointly, as an element of future European defence.

Going in a similar direction is the rationalising of the Atlantic Alliance. Behind the goal of “Smart Defence”, which will be formally adopted by NATO at the end of May in Chicago, there is the aim to give renewed impetus to the Alliance by tasking it with optimising national expenditures through joint military projects. It is yet to be seen whether, after the Declaration, this effort will be successful. Nonetheless, it will force the national authorities to rethink their current military expenditures, if only in Atlantic terms.

The process of forming a European market of defence products is another driving element. Purpose made European procedures were recently decided in order to deregulate the intercommunity exchanges of defence products. It is likely that others will follow, with the end effect of creating a full-blown European defence market. A market that is notoriously atypical, due to the fact that, from the demand side, there is just one purchaser, the State, which is also often the owner of the manufacturing companies. Liberalising the circulation of defence products within the European Union will mean that they will increasingly be procured by the armed forces from all over Europe. In any case, the companies in the defence industry are consolidating in various ways within Europe. In the various sectors, “European champions” are being created that compete internationally, instead of the old and expensive “national champions”. These companies move easily within Europe as a single market, strengthening the drive towards common defence procedures.

Lastly, it needs to be emphasised that European countries are increasingly working together towards developing new defence equipment. This is a practice that has taken root and was strongly developed in recent years by the European Defence Agency within the EU. These cooperative actions replace the multinational arrangements made outside the EU, which laboriously governed the collaborations on individual products made jointly in the past. The growing portfolio of projects and studies by the European Defence and Security Agency helps safeguard and develop the technological and industrial base necessary for improving the quality of the European defence equipments.

These processes certainly help progress towards European defence. However, the European fundamental ideals and policies are ever more applicable. “No more war” motivated the European project of the founders of a united Europe. The European Community was thus created after the Second World War as a grand project for European security. But a United Europe cannot exist as long as the Member States retain their sovereignty over the defence systems. The processes underway will only help achieve a European defence if supported by the awareness of the deep political and ideal motives that are the real reason for them to exist.