Security is Sexy, Defence is Not – Why the EU continues to Struggle with a Common Security and Defence Policy

Cornelius Adebahr argues that although security is a sexy topic, these days the EU has more pressing issues to tackle.

When the EU heads of state or government met for the first time as 27 after the UK’s ‘Brexit’ referendum in September, it was all about security: Before European Council President, Donald Tusk, had said anything of substance in his statement after the summit, he stated that “millions of Europeans feel insecure”. However, he did not refer to a possible outside threat like during the Cold War, but to citizens’ “fears over migration, terrorism and […] their economic and social future”.

In fact, this diagnosis had more to do with what European leaders deducted from the outcome of the British poll a few months earlier (which many saw repeated in the U.S. presidential election in early November) and with what they might collectively be willing to do, than with what is actually demanded of the EU in an insecure environment. On this latter point in particular, both Brussels and in particular the member states – which hold the keys to all things hard security-related – still fall greatly short.

Admittedly, the Bratislava Roadmap agreed in September only aspires to bridge the period until the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Rome Treaty in March 2017. So it saves all grand proposals for later, concentrating on smaller initiatives such as getting the European Border and Coast Guard operational, increasing information exchanges among the national security services, and implementing the joint EU-NATO declaration agreed at the alliance’s summit in Warsaw in June.

At their next formal meeting in mid-December, EU chiefs plan to adopt a farther-reaching plan to implement the security and defence parts of the EU Global Strategy, adopted in June. This is still a far cry away from the European army some speculate about – whether this is in fact a federalist project as Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker might see it or indeed rather a beefed-up border protection corps as the Visegrad countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) seem to imagine it. Yet it is indeed one step closer to addressing the challenges from the “ring of instability” that surrounds the union. At last, rather than boasting in general terms about the EU’s global role, the Council has now concretised the union’s ‘level of ambition’ by defining three different goals: responding to external conflicts and crises, building the capacities of partners, and protecting the Union and its citizens.

However, a number of issues will complicate this process (in addition to member states’ continued reluctance to share sovereignty in an area considered central to a state’s raison d’être): First and foremost, there is the UK and the Article 50 negotiations necessary to end its membership. Rather than allowing for smooth collaboration among the 27 in the light of its departure from the club, the UK has threatened to veto an EU ‘defence union’ for as long as it remains a member. Obviously, other governments are also wary of the idea of more defence integration; but the upcoming negotiations with London risk souring the bilateral relationship profoundly, including in the area of security and defence policy and to the detriment of the EU’s actual security.

Then there is President Donald Trump: His statements about NATO have already sent shivers down the spine of many a European policymaker, so it is of little comfort that he may not actually mean all that he said. If Trump’s unpredictability possibly is an asset vis-à-vis America’s opponents, it certainly does not help its friends and allies. Which means that now that the EU seems to have found its (conceptual) place in security and defence alongside NATO, it is unclear whether the latter will continue to provide the hard security shield ‘made in the USA’ without which European security is still unthinkable.

Finally, there is the question of the place of security and defence policy in the broader discourse about Europe: Beyond responding to the challenges it faces, can the EU use policy integration in this field to relate to citizens’ who feel insecure (to get back to President Tusk’s earlier remark)? Could an (increasingly) common security and defence policy be the ‘next big thing’ in European integration that helps the EU out of its current slump?

Despite all good intentions, this is unlikely – if only because people do not get excited about defence issues such as integrated headquarters, joint procurement, and civil-military missions in third (i.e. far-away) countries. That does not make any of these initiatives less important; in fact, they are simple necessities for the EU that needs to be better able to defend itself (which member states are no longer able, and the United States no longer willing to do).

Questions of internal security, in contrast, have more appeal for the public. Yet it is hard to see how increased coordination at the EU level – e.g. on information-sharing, travel databases, and counter-radicalisation measures – will endear Brussels to citizens in member states. As long as the police and intelligence officers who fold a plot are their co-nationals, they will tend to thank their own government for providing security not some distant bureaucracy.

That is why the fight for Europe’s soul is one that is decided at the national level. The EU has to work towards the goals it set itself with the global strategy in order to come closer to the ‘resilience’ it needs in a crisis-ridden world. However, this will not sway citizens critical of Brussels – bar a major imminent security threat that the union could visibly help to dispel (hard to think of one that does not also involve a – probably more prominent – NATO response).

Instead, it will have to deliver on the other issues that Tusk mentioned in passing, those relating to the economic and social dimension of Europe. So despite security being a sexy topic these days, these are the real (hot) issues for the EU.

Cornelius Adebahr is a nonresident fellow at Carnegie Europe. His research focuses on European foreign policy in a broad sense, from integrating the Western Balkans into Euro-Atlantic structures to the European Union’s role in the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program to the impact of the economic crisis on Europe’s global role.

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