Building European defence through crises

The European Studies Centre, together with South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX), hosted Marilena Koppa, Professor at Panteion University in Athens, Greece. The seminar was held on 22 February 2024 and was chaired by Othon Anastasakis, Director of the European Studies Centre and of SEESOX.

Koppa’s presentation was based on her book The Evolution of the Common Security and Defence Policy: Critical Junctures and the Quest for EU Strategic Autonomy published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2022. The research for the book had taken place before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Koppa presented her analysis on the needs and challenges to build European defence by taking into account this latest crisis that the European Union has had to face.

Koppa noted that her time as a member of the European Parliament, when she also held the position of Coordinator of the Socialist and Democrat Group at the Subcommittee on Security and Defence, had prompted her to research European defence policy as an academic. In her presentation she discussed the origins of European defence, its evolution through crises, and its needs for the future.

Koppa argued that the EU’s Common and Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) sought to build European military capabilities that in the long-term would make the Union a global actor, but it did not seek to provide collective defence, which has been a NATO mission. The defence focus of the CSDP would be to prevent crises outside EU borders from reaching the Union.In the framework of the CSDP, the EU started deploying both military and civilian missions. But despite having conducted 40 missions and operations overall since the inception of the CSDP, the EU has always turned to NATO to deal with defence threats.

Koppa posited that the key obstacles to build a common European defence system are closely related to the importance of defence to national sovereignty and the uncertainty of EU member states that their security interests will be safeguarded by a European defence alliance.

Despite these fundamental obstacles, Koppa argued that the Union has sought to establish its defence coordination capabilities incrementally and in response to crises – from the Yugoslav wars to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the “rapture of the Anglosphere.”

The Yugoslav wars led to the Franco-British St. Malo Declaration in 1998 through which France and the United Kingdom agreed on the need to establish EU military capabilities. This was the first quest for autonomy and the need to deal with European problems, according to Koppa. The US reacted to the European attempts to establish a common defence policy by underlining their 3 Ds: non-duplication, non-decoupling, non-discrimination. This meant that European decision-making should not be decoupled from Alliance decision-making; force planning should not duplicate or compromise NATO readiness; and there should not be discrimination against NATO members who are not EU members.

Koppa further discussed the Union’s partial advances made in establishing a common defence system and its shortcomings in dealing with the Iraq war in 2003, the fallout of the Arab Spring, and the 2014 annexation of Crimea. She argued that the EU has been unable to establish a coherent defence policy that would prioritise threats, allocate resources and outline security engagements. However, she considered the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine as a critical juncture that will deepen the integration of European defence policy. Coupled with the rapture of the Anglosphere – that is, Brexit and the Trump presidency – the Russian invasion of Ukraine has instilled a sense of urgency of the need to build EU capabilities. According to Koppa, geopolitical threats and the uncertainty of the US strategic approach towards Europe – accentuated by former President Trump’s comments on encourage Russia “do whatever they want” if NATO members do not reach the 2 percent target – are leading the EU to consider evermore strongly the need for strategic autonomy.

The discussion that followed the presentation focused on the challenges to building a European defence system and whether such a goal is either achievable or indeed desirable. Specific questions dealt with NATO-EU relations, EU procurement, resource mobilization, and the potential of having a defence commissioner in the incoming EU Commission.

by Alban Dafa (ESC Research Assistant)