The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 112 between Member states when identifying the capacities required to exploit opportuni- ties arising from the new cooperative initia- tives, and PESCO in particular. EDF. In June 2018, the European Commission began to implement the European Council decision, taken the previous year, to establish this fund. The basic objective is to coordinate, complement and expand national invest- ment in research and defence, in developing prototypes and the acquisition of military technology and equipment, and a 13-billion- euro budget has been allocated to this, which will increase significantly for the peri- od 2021 to 2027. – European Industrial Development Programme. The Commission launched this programme, which is dependent on the EDF, with the reg- ulations being approved by the European Parliament on 3 July 2018. This funding pro- gramme will run from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2020, providing 500 million euros to support the development of European in- dustry initiatives. Its aim is to promote com- petitiveness, efficiency and the capacity for innovation of the defence industries. – MPCC. This was created in June 2017, and answers to the Military Staff of the EU, a uni- fied command designed to enhance coop- eration and coordination between civil and military partners, to strengthen the planning and implementation of EU non-executive military missions. On 19 November 2018, the Foreign Affairs and Defence Council agreed to expand the competencies and leadership of an executive mission of the CSDP, restricting combat missions to the size of one EU battle group. This progress rein- forces the notion that the MPCC will gradu- ally become a strategic general HQ request- ed by numerous countries. – The new form of EU-NATO cooperation. Cooperation between the two organizations has been strengthened since 2017. This ena- bled NATO to accept the development of PESCO. On 10 July 2018, an updated joint declaration was released, establishing com- bined action in response to threats to com- mon security. The declaration highlighted aspects of this cooperation in the fight against smuggling and people trafficking, increased capacity to respond to hybrid threats, and defence and security support for neighbours to the south and east. The declaration stressed European strategic au- tonomy and the importance of PESCO and the EDF to the achievement of shared objec- tives, with more than 70 joint programmes being implemented by the two organiza- tions over the past two years. – European Action Plan on Military Mobility. On 10 November 2017, High Representative Federica Mogherini issued a communication on improving military mobility in the EU. In it, she set out a series of proposals to elimi- nate the existing barriers to joint exercises and other collaboration between countries, which had previously been subject to delays. The Commission hopes that there will be a fully developed European Defence Union by 2025. – The European Peace Facility. The creation of this fund was approved in June 2018, with the aim of improving the funding of EU mili- tary operations and supporting our partners’ actions to fund their crisis management op- erations. This is a new fund that will replace the African Peace Facility and the Athena mechanism, and will provide continued funding for the programmes and actions supported by those funds. Its aim is to im- prove the effectiveness of operations, to