by Oui
Mon May 19th, 2025 at 12:00:13 PM EST
A new security and defense agreement
Fisheries of Great Britain and Security Infrastructure
Time to boost Irish defense spending to 5% GDP ... Join the club 🤣
Calls for Ireland to boost defence of subsea internet cables | The Guardian |
Channelling security: A new era for EU-UK defence cooperation | ECFR |
A new defence pact between Britain and the EU could establish a framework for deeper, long-term collaboration. For it to work well, London and Brussels will need to iron out six key issues
Since Brexit, defence has barely registered on the EU-UK cooperation agenda. Instead, NATO or bilateral frameworks have served as the default--and often preferred--framework for defence collaboration across the Channel, reflecting a lack of political appetite for a bilateral EU-UK-focused approach.
This changed within days of Donald Trump's return to the US presidency. It suddenly became abundantly clear to London and Brussels that America was no longer willing to play its traditional role as Europe's security provider. Britain and the EU are now keen to identify the best institutional approach and the priority areas for defence cooperation. The EU-UK defence and security pact, which will likely be signed on May 19th, is an important first step in a broader, multifaceted approach to enhancing defence cooperation.
Getting the format right
Until now and besides the NATO framework, cross-channel defence cooperation has largely taken place through ad hoc bilateral or mini-lateral arrangements, such as the 2010 Lancaster House Franco-British Treaty and the 2024 German-British Trinity House agreements. Ideological differences, and more recently the scars of Brexit, influenced this preference for flexible coalitions over institutional EU-UK frameworks. Formats like the Joint Expeditionary Force and the Weimar+ or E5 (France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK) group, along with Franco-British efforts to support Ukraine, further illustrate this trend.
This preference for "coalitions of the willing" and other lighter forms of ad hoc cooperation can be useful stepping stones. For example, any nuclear conversations among Europeans will not take place under an EU umbrella. Bilateral formats will continue to matter as the first deliverables of the Trinity House agreement and the likely substantive Franco-British summit in July 2025 demonstrate. And some European operational cooperation will continue to be developed in these bilateral or mini-lateral formats when an EU framework does not really exist. This will not be to the point of resurrecting the 1948 Western European Union but could include formalising a like-minded European defence format.
The EU-UK pact offers a good opportunity
to set the tone for a stronger and more
formal relationship, but it will require steady
and good faith efforts on both sides
The UK, for example, does not have an administrative arrangement with the European Defence Agency, whereas America, Norway, Switzerland, Ukraine and Serbia all do. Such arrangements are formally prerequisites for real cooperation with the agency. To bridge this gap, London will need to move away from its approach of defending third-party access to EU projects and instead seek ways to more closely participate in line with its own national interests.
For its part, the EU needs to acknowledge that the UK (like Norway) is an important part of the European Defence and Technological Industrial Base (EDTIB)and should therefore be a distinct partner from other third parties around the globe.
Not ready for war: EU needs long-term strategy for defence R&D, Court of Auditors says | 27 April 2023 |
A three-year pilot programme designed to lay the ground for the EU's first move into funding defence R&D did not fulfil its purpose. A more strategic approach is needed to ensure research is translated into new defence technologies
EU auditors are calling on the European Commission and the European Defence Agency (EDA) to come up with a long-term strategy for defence R&D, to make sure that technologies developed with EU money are deployed by member states and the defence industry.
A report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) published on Wednesday, says the EU €90 million preparatory action on defence research (PADR) programme was only partially useful in getting the EU ready to ramp up defence R&D spending through the new €8 billion European Defence Fund (EDF). The EDF is an unprecedented attempt by the EU to bring together research and industry in the field of defence technologies.
The auditors say the ground was not properly prepared because the €90 million PADR pilot that started in 2017 did not deliver results in time for the fully fledged launch of EDF in 2021.
Europe's Strategic Reckoning: The State of European Defence and Future Prospects | BSIS - 27 Mar. 2025 |
- On 19 March 2025, the White Paper for European Defence Readiness 2030 was published. It provides a framework for the ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030 plan to strengthen European defence by increasing national funding, and industrial capacity, and promoting joint projects at the community level.
- Despite recent efforts to strengthen its defence capabilities, the European Union (EU) continues to face significant challenges such as a fragmented market, supply chain issues, and a lack of political will among member states to deepen their reliance on the EU for developing the defence industry.
- Although ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030 and the White Paper have yet to be implemented, they will likely shape the political discourse within the EU and influence its approach to negotiations in Ukraine.
Review EU's €650 billion Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)
