Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

The threat landscape for the Union has worsened in the last year. Russia has intensified its war of aggression against Ukraine with additional support from its allies including North Korea, Iran, Belarus and China. Russia predictably shows no interest in peace. Equally, Russia continued, and even intensified its hybrid war against Europe, including in Moldova, Georgia and the Western Balkans. At the same time, the increasing isolationism of the Trump administration and its wavering attitude towards NATO, Europe, multilateralism and the rules-based order means that Europe is increasingly isolated. The highly volatile Middle East and North Africa region cause further risks for European security and European responses to the various conflicts have diminished our posture and ability to protect our strategic interests.

In spite of unprecedented spending increases, assurances of NATO’s capacity and European industrial ramp-up, we remain insufficiently prepared for what might come and our deterrence is insufficient to ward off Russia’s tests of our military preparedness, or worse.

Europe continues to face multiple challenges: assuming the responsibility for support to Ukraine as a moral obligation and a long-term investment in our own security while ramping up production, learning new battlefield tactics, replenishing our own stocks, building societal resilience and pushing forward deep structural reforms to increase the long-term autonomy, competitiveness, integration and pace of innovation of the EDTIB.

The Union’s leadership in the area of strengthening the EDTIB is highly needed and welcome, but the report outlines that current solutions – while ambitious – do not resolve long-standing structural issues that prevent full implementation of the CSDP, including in relation to military doctrine, fragmentation, political unity and the lack of a common threat perception. The draft report reviews the current ‘CSDP missions and operations’ but urges to give more practical effect to the other aspects of CSDP in relation to collective defence and working towards a genuine European Defence Union. It highlights the need for a functioning pan-european internal defence market and adequate and societally acceptable European funding solutions.

The report flags that the lack of unity among Member States has necessitated Coalitions of the Willing but that such initiatives should ideally be placed within EU structures through an operational form of permanent structured cooperation. The report argues the current context should imply an architectural moment for the CSDP, or at minimum to give full practice effect to the full scope of the current CSDP. It makes a number of practical recommendations in this regard.

This is the first CSDP report under the authorship of the SEDE Committee since it was granted the status of a full-fledged committee. The Rapporteur has spoken with a wide range of interlocutors. They have universally flagged the importance of the Parliament’s forward thinking on the CSDP, while many acknowledged to have little knowledge of the annual CSDP report itself. This has informed the shape of the report.

The report recognises that the credibility of Europe’s deterrence and defence lies not only in material capabilities but also in its political unity and the courage and resolve to act. The deteriorating global security landscape leaves no room for inaction towards a genuine European common security and defence policy: if not now, when.