The ARES Comments Series “Integration of the European Capability Process in Member States’ Administration” examines the integration of the European Union (EU) capability development process into Member States’ national administrations.
Over the past two decades, the EU has progressively built a comprehensive set of instruments designed to coordinate and harmonise defence capabilities across Member States, from the CDP and CARD to PESCO and the EDF. Yet despite this proliferation of tools and cooperation frameworks — significantly accelerated since 2017 and further reinforced in response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2022 — European cooperation in the field of armaments remains limited, or at the very least insufficiently visible in its outcomes.
Against this backdrop, the series raises a central question: to what extent have Member States actually integrated these instruments into their national policies? These comments therefore seek to determine whether the limited results observed reflect a structural inefficiency in the EU capability development process itself, or rather a failure by Member States to make full and appropriate use of the tools at their disposal.