THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Towards a new legislative term

49 Introduction Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has once again placed the European Union’s need to have mili- tary tools at its disposal to defend the territorial integrity of its Member states and the security of its citizens at the top of the EU’s agenda. In the words of the Heads of State and Government of the EU: “Russia’s war of aggression constitutes a tectonic shift in European his- tory. At our meeting in Versailles, we discussed how the EU can live up to its responsibilities in this new reality, protecting our citizens, values, democracies, and our Eu- ropean model.” (2022:3) This war enables us to see the effects of a deteriorat- ing international environment, one in which rules and multilateralism are being replaced by power politics, in which connectivity has ceased to be a driver of coopera- tion and has instead become a source of conflict (Leon- ard 2022), and where the weight of hard power is once again decisive. If the EU is serious about protecting its citizens and their way of life, it cannot ignore this reality. The war has also shown beyond any doubt that Europe’s defensive capabilities are not up to the demands of a high-intensity, prolonged conflict. The development of a Defence Union has been a high- ly controversial issue within the context of the integration process, and also a disappointing one in which, as Borrell notes, there has been a significant gap between declara- tions and actual outcomes (Borrell 2023a: 147). This can be explained by the influence of a range of factors: the issue of state sovereignty, the differing strategic cultures, perceptions and priorities of Member states, suspicions among some Member states of the leadership of other states, discrepancies regarding the use of force, and the inevitable question of the EU’s relationship with NATO and, by extension, the United States. It is also important to remember that defence policy is tied to national interests, and that both overall approaches and specific procurement decisions are often determined by the desire to favour particular domestic companies or to protect certain inter- national alliances. As a result, and despite the fact that in 2016 we talked of “awakening the Sleeping Beauty”, the process of constructing a Defence Europe is proving more difficult, complex and slower than we might have hoped. European defence in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine: is strategic autonomy a genuinely shared and realistic objective? Mercedes Guinea Llorente