Funding the EU's security, defence, and border policies, 2021-2027

At time time of writing, a war is being waged in Ukraine following an illegal invasion by Russian troops in February 2022. In response to this war, European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that the EU would, for the first time ever, finance the purchase and delivery of weapons to a country under attack. EC vice president and high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell, confirmed that lethal weapons would be sent to the war zone, funded by the European Peace Facility, saying that `another taboo has fallen... that the European Union was not providing arms in a war'.

The European Peace Facility is but one of the EU's array of budgetary instruments that form part of the 2021-27 Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF), under which an unprecedented amount of money has been earmarked for security and defence purposes. Other instruments with specific budget lines for security, defence and military equipment include the Internal Security Fund (ISF), the Integrated Border Management Fund (IBMF), the Asylum and Migration Fund (AMF), the Security Research Programme and the European Defence Fund (EDF), among others. This research discusses the objectives and functioning of each of these instruments, while also interrogating the larger political picture regarding what their approval means for the EU as a whole.

[...]

The ultimate aim of all these movements is a more just, peaceful world - one that eliminates the historic systems of social and economic inequality that have for so long divided people and societies, as well as the systems of surveillance, coercion and exclusion that underpin these systems. Governments have not given a warm reception to this message. On the contrary, by and large they continue to press ahead with failed models of security that have done so much harm, propelled by economic interests that see `solutions' for security problems in new technologies of surveillance and coercion.

The new seven-year security budgets approved by the European Union (EU) in early 2021- the subject of this report - provide a clear example of this woeful tendency. A massive increase in security spending over the next seven years - to the tune of tens of billions of euros - is set to further reinforce `Fortress Europe', bolster the technologies and powers available to police forces, and provide enormous sums for the development of new military equipment and the deployment of military operations overseas. This report is intended as a guide for campaigners, journalists, researchers and others who wish to understand how these budgets work, with the aim of spurring critical engagement with the projects and activities the EU currently funds, as well as informing subsequent negotiations on the next round of EU security spending, due to start in 2025.

• Protecting Eden, or the Dark New Geopolitics of "Fortress Europe" | Nov. 22, 2022 |
• The Wall: Make Europe Great Again | Feb 10, 2023 |