“The most burning issue in Europe is financing security and defense,” he said on informal council EU finance ministers, the head of this ministry in Poland, Andrzej Domański. He served as a foundation for conversations The report of the Bruegel Institute ordered by the Polish presidency. The influential Brussels Think Tank tried to answer questionhow to make EU defense expenses the right size and lead to such strengthening of the military force of Europe so that it can oppose the potential Russian aggression.
After the EcoFin Council, Minister Domański emphasized that most ministers were interested and consistent that Europe needed additional tools except for the packages of its remilitarization already prepared by the EU.
Skeptical Germany
At the same time, however, on the council There were no binding decisions regarding defense expenses. The axis of the dispute is whether the EU should be indebted for this purpose more than it had previously planned. Minister Domański described the report of Bruegel as “the publication of an independent think tank”. Although ordered by the presidency, the document is not her position. No wonder. As the German daily “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” emphasized the next day, ideas were presented in Warsaw that definitely go beyond what the European Commission proposed. Cited by the Gazeta departing The German Minister of Finance Jörg Kukies statedthat you should first use existing instruments instead of creating new and complicated.
What is the report about?
What exactly is in the Bruegel report, which at least for now turned out to be too ambitious for EU ministers? His key proposal is a creation newEuropean – but not the EU – institution, i.e. European defense mechanism (EDM). The basis of its operation would be the intergovernmental treaty, members – EU countries, the European Commission as an EU executive and allied countries from outside the EU, including Ukraine. The goal – building a real common European defense market and enabling financing of joint orders of armament On a scale that would correspond to the scale of Russian threat to Europe.
The idea of Bruegel is based on the recently frequent form of organizing European countries, i.e. a coalition of volunteers. Although such a coalition does not have the institutional power of the EU, it avoids the EU unanimity requirement. EU countries that do not want to deepen defensive integration could simply not join this structure.
The creators of the report as the main challenge facing Europe will recognize exactly what the Polish Minister Domański – launching and financing the remixation of the continent on a huge scale. However, they emphasize the conditions in which this remilitarization must be carried out: fragmentation of the European defense industry according to state borders. As an example, they give Ukraine one type of tanks, Europe – seven. And they claim that existing structures and initiatives are not enough.
Bruegel Institute: This is not enough for Russia
According to Bruegel's report, compared to the expansion of the Russian army, Europeans have significant holes to patch – not only technological, but also cost. Indicate that in 2023 Revenues of 27 European arms companies from the world first hundred were 130 billion euro – Half of what their American competition.
According to experts, a simple increase in the demand for weapons without reducing the fragmentation of markets and the launch of joint multi -score orders will only increase prices. And the existing EU initiatives to start the European arms industry – like European Defense Fund or even the recently announced REARM Europe instrument – they offer too little to break the favor of each country their own domestic arms concerns.
The authors of the report also consider the existing EU structures and European initiatives to be insufficient to Europe could gain key elements of a strategic advantagesuch as a network of military satellites and intelligence based on them, a uniform command structure, Fifth and sixth generation combat aircraftsea and air logistics skills and Rocket and nuclear deterrent.
European defense mechanism
The main assumption of the European defense mechanism is to focus on common Orders of military equipment in European companieswhich instead of causing an increase in production and equipment prices will lead – thanks to the mass mass and increasing their profitability for producers – to reduce them in the long run.
This – and a ban on the favoring of native production imposed on the rule of the parties to the Treaty of EDM – as a consequence, it is to cause the creation of a uniform European defense market. Another argument for the creation of a new institution – one that in particular will appeal to the front countries, i.e. bordering with Russia and Belarus of the eastern flank of Europe – There is to be support for them, e.g. through more favorable conditions than other countries, equipment purchases and using it.
Importantly, “strategic factors”, such as espionage satellites or rocket technologies, would co -ownership of EDM parties, not specific countries – which would be in the assumptions of the authors to deepen their cooperation in the field of defense. The exploitation of defense resources belonging to EDM would be coordinated with the NATO command and control structure.
Instead of EU unanimity
How would decisions be made as part of EDM itself? Bruegel sees here – in contrast to the often paralyzing EU unanimity – the mechanism of a regular or qualified majority, weighted in subscription, i.e. in how much a given country would pay the entry fee. Its size would depend on the expenses of a given state for defense, its military assets and economic force.
The creators of the report summarize that their idea – creating based on the Treaty of the New Intergovernmental European institution dealing in ordering and buying on the European market from European weapons and ammunition producers and military equipment – also avoids the necessary change in the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union. They indicate that art. 346 TFEU “excludes goods related to national security from the single market.”
The article comes from the website Deutsche Welle.