Promoting European Defence Cooperation and the Promise of Financial Incentives

The European Union (EU) has never directly funded defence research or military capability development before; so the fact that EU financial support for both defence research and joint capability development is now possible following the release of the European Defence Action Plan (EDAP) is curious and interesting. The fact that defence research and capability development are now seen as vital strategic investments on behalf of the EU marks a radical shift in the way the EU thinks about and supports defence. Following the release of the EDAP on 30 November 2016 and the unveiling of the European Defence Fund (EDIF1), the European Commission outlined how it intends to invest in defence. The fund is comprised of two ‘windows’. The first is centred on defence research, and will see the EU allocate €90 million for defence research from 2017 to 2020 out of the EU budget – €25 million of which has already been earmarked for 2017. In time, this ‘research window’ could be endowed with a €500 million per year allocation, called the European Defence Research Programme (EDRP). If agreed, this programme would be operational from 2020 onwards (Fiott and Bellais, 2016)…