European defence

EU plans to be an independent defence actor by 2030

The European Commission unveiled its “White Paper for European Defence - Readiness 2030”. The initiative sets a clear objective: Europe must be prepared for war within five years, the estimated time for Russia to rebuild its offensive capabilities. What plans does the paper contain? And how was it received by European leaders?

The European Commission unveiled its “White Paper for European Defence - Readiness 2030” on Wednesday 19 March —just ahead of a pivotal summit of the European Council. The initiative sets a clear objective: Europe must be prepared for war within five years, the estimated time frame in which Russia could plausibly rebuild its offensive capabilities. What plans does the paper contain? How was it received by European leaders? And what can we expect going forward?

As Russia’s military spending is soaring to great heights and the United States has signalled a smaller role in European security, there is an urgent need for the EU to boost defence budgets and become an independent security provider. The White Paper is a highly-anticipated proposal to deal with these challenges. It is a long-term, overarching EU defence strategy that sets out the necessary steps to rebuild European defence, support Ukraine, address critical capability gaps and establish a strong and competitive European defence industrial base. NATO is still recognised as the main cornerstone of collective defence in Europe, but through the actions in the White Paper, the EU seeks to enable Member States to take a more active role in the development of Europe’s new security architecture.

Although the White Paper was a long time in the making, the rapidly changing events in Ukraine led the Commission to present some of its proposals before the publication date. The most notable early release was the announcement of the ReArm Europe plan two weeks ago. This initiative aims to mobilise €800 billion for Europe's defence and "immediate" military support for Ukraine. The plan contains an exception for defence spending from the EU’s budget rules, which would give Member States fiscal space of €650 billion to increase their military budgets. On top of that, it proposes a new instrument, Security and Action for Europe (SAFE), that provides €150 billion of loans backed by the EU budget to the Member States for joint defence investment.

ReArm Europe is at the heart of the White Paper, as Europe has to compensate for decades of underspending on its security. This was illustrated by EU High Representative Kaja Kallas, who is jointly responsible for the White Paper together with EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, at Wednesday’s presentation:

“What we invest in defence is how we value our defence. And for the past few decades, we haven’t put a high enough price on it. We must spend more.”

In addition to the financial firepower, the European Commission also highlights seven priority areas that Member States should invest in. These include air and missile defence, artillery systems, ammunition and missiles, military mobility, drones and counter-drone systems, AI/Quantum/cyber and electronic warfare, and strategic enablers such as Air-to-Air refueling or encrypted communication. To address these capability gaps, the Commission advocates for establishing strategic stockpiles and a coherent approach to joint procurement, including a European preference for equipment procured with EU funds.

Furthermore, the White Paper proposes the integration of Ukraine’s defence industry into Europe’s broader defence technological and industrial base - a move that reflects both strategic solidarity and industrial pragmatism. In a clear signal that Europe should no longer rely on external suppliers,  Turkey, the US and the UK are left out of the proposal altogether, despite a last-ditch effort from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to be included.

Following the launch on Wednesday, the White Paper was immediately brought to the European Council, which convened in Brussels on Thursday for a summit. With little time to prepare, the heads of government agreed on the broad ambition of the plan but did not reach concrete agreements on its content. They instead called for “an acceleration of work on all strands to decisively ramp up Europe’s defence readiness within the next five years”. This call will be eagerly received in the European Parliament, where the chair of the EP’s Security and Defence Committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann MEP commented:

“The White Paper not only identifies the pressing threats to our security and freedom, but also provides a concrete set of tools that Member States can adopt immediately to react to these threats. The course is set and the time to act is now.”

The White Paper on Defence has the potential to truly transform Europe into a credible defence player, but significant political differences remain on the financial burden sharing, the financing of the EU loans for defence investment, and the scope of the “European preference” for joint defence procurement.

The distribution of the burden is made clear by the different threat perception of the individual member states, with Spain, for example, perceiving migration as a major threat to internal security and Poland feeling much more threatened by Russia. In terms of financing, some highly indebted states are demanding joint European debt in order to avoid having to reduce their high public spending, which brings them into direct conflict with more fiscally conservative states such as Germany or the Netherlands. The “European preference” mainly revolves around the question of whether weapons should also be procured from outside Europe, for example from the USA, in the medium term, or whether capability gaps should be left open until the European arms industry has closed them. France advocates this option in the sense of European strategic autonomy, whereas Germany would like to close all capability gaps as quickly as possible, which would also mean procuring armaments from outside the EU such as the American F-35.

Although there is a lot of appetite for action, the results will depend on the ability of Member States to bridge these differences. This is urgently needed to deal with the security challenges that we are dealing with, now and in the future.