THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Towards a new legislative term

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 54 and innovation. As in the case of the EDF, the military capabilities developed in this way belong to the partici- pants, who can decide whether to apply them within the framework of the EU or in other international operations with a UN or NATO mandate. If we look at the funding side, some of the projects are very ambitious while others are more limited. Levels of participation also vary greatly, with the largest being the Military Mobility project, with all PESCO members as well as some non-EU states participating, 6 while there are several projects with only two participants. Commit- ment varies greatly from state to state, although here too it is clear that the large states have more resources to allocate to these projects and thus occupy leadership roles. In the institutional evaluation of PESCO, the results are ambivalent (Recommendation 2022/C433/02). The Council calls upon Member states to put more ef- fort into meeting their obligations in national defence investment, in accordance with their objectives with respect to the EU’s needs, and into participation in CSDP missions and operations. It also expresses con- cern because a limited number of projects are failing to meet their objectives within the timeframe established, although it notes that the majority have done so. The Council is also hopeful that the renewed political com- mitment to defence since 2022, as a result of the war, will strengthen the resolve of Member states and will lead to better outcomes. Finally, as a consequence of these changes, in June 2017 the European Council decided to create a perma- nent operational command centre to provide the EU with strategic capabilities – the Military Planning and Conduct Capability – and this was first activated for civil and mixed missions and subsequently for small execu- tive (i.e., military) decisions (Decision (EU) 2017/971). This has already directed three non-executive opera- tions: Somalia, Central African Republic and Mali. This contribution facilitated the transmission of information, and the adoption of political decisions, but requires more staff and resources (Reykers 2019). This aspect 6 In this project, the Council has authorised the participation of some NATO members who had expressed their interest, including the United States, Canada, Norway and the United Kingdom, as Military Mobility is also one of the lines of action of EU–NATO cooperation. is very important, and is the other element needed for common defence. It is not possible to deploy and use national forces in joint operations if the EU does not have the necessary capacities for command and control, intelligence, logistics, administration and training. This decision and other PESCO projects are gradually con- tributing to the construction of these capabilities. Another equally important European Council deci- sion was to fund the deployment of Battlegroups, paid for from shared resources (European Council 2017:5). Battalions established by Member states and available for deployment by the EU had existed since 2007 but have never been used. Now, the question is whether this approach will be replaced by the Rapid Deploy- ment Force. Since 2016, there has been institutionalised cooperation between the EU and NATO, which has so far led to three joint declarations and the implementa- tion of a solid framework for political dialogue and a substantial number of projects in the area of security, ranging from military mobility to maritime security and cybersecurity (EU-NATO 2022). Evaluation of this stage of deployment of the Euro- pean defence policy found that Member states are set- ting out on a path of cooperation, prioritizing industrial capabilities and aspects, but that there are still signifi- cant differences between them (Duke 2018) and they remain very resistant to thinking at a European level and moving away from a sovereignty-based approach to de- fence. As the Court of Auditors indicated, there are many ongoing challenges that must be overcome if these new initiatives are to have an impact on the EU’s ability to defend itself (2019: 6-7): an effective planning process at the EU level, the effective participation of Member states, the impact on the need for real capabilities, and the governance and accountability framework. We agree with Katsoulis that significant progress has been made from the institutional perspective, but that Mem- ber states have not invested in capabilities and there is a lack of political will among Member states for joint action (2022: 102). The next objective will be to try to ensure that Mem- ber states see the Defence Union as a priority, and ef- fectively commit to its success, as they “play the central role in Europe’s defence architecture” (Court of Auditors 2019:7). Since High Representative Borrell assumed his