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Begin New Search Topic Brexit Political Geography Europe Content Type Special Report Publishing Institution International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS Publication Year within 25 Years Publication Year within 10 Years

1. Building Capacity for the EU Global Strategy

Author:
Tony Lawrence, Henrik Praks, and Pauli Järvenpää
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:
A degraded security situation, the Brexit referendum and the election of a US President at best indifferent to European security matters have led the Member States to search for new security and defence solutions and for new ways to demonstrate European cohesion. The debate on an EU defence dimension is thus livelier than it has been for many years. But, EU security and defence efforts will amount to little if the EU’s new level of ambition is not underpinned by effective military capabilities. Until very recently, European defence budgets have been in decline, and agreed capability shortfalls have not been addressed. Defence cooperation, long recognised as a necessity if the Member States are to deliver the real capability that both the EU and NATO require, is limited by political concerns over sovereignty and trust, technical issues, and the continued preference of the Member States to procure from national suppliers. The uncoordinated and inefficient use of defence budgets leads to a lack of standardisation, poor interoperability, duplication, diminished competitiveness in Europe’s defence industry, and the wasting of money. New initiatives are on the table – Permanent Structured Cooperation, the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence and the Commission’s Defence Action Plan and Defence Fund – which together can have a positive and transformative impact. They will provide the Member States with a recharged set of tools to support collaborative capability development. Historically, though, the obstacle to defence cooperation has not been the lack of tools, but the lack of political will to make use of them.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Markets, European Union, Brexit, and Defense Industry
Political Geography:
Europe

2. Brexit and Baltic Sea Security

Author:
Riina Kaljurand, Tony Lawrence, Pauli Järvenpää, and Tomas Jermalavicius
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:
The result of the UK’s June 2016 referendum on continued membership of the EU was unexpected and its consequences may be wide-ranging and grave. This report considers the impact of the UK’s exit from the European Union (‘Brexit’) on the security of Estonia, the Baltic Sea region and Europe more widely. Its focus is hard security – military security and defence. The UK is a defence and security actor of considerable prominence, able to contribute significant military capability to the organisations and operations in which it participates. It is, however, sceptical about the place of the EU in defence matters and has achieved a certain level of infamy for its perseverance in obstructing the further development of an EU defence dimension. One immediate consequence of the Brexit referendum result was a burst of ideas for further EU defence integration, which has led to an agreement on the first steps for implementing the EU Global Strategy in the area of security and defence. Not all member states, however, are enthusiastic for these ideas. Interviews conducted for this report with officials and researchers in the Baltic Sea states of Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, and also in the UK found that interviewees believed that their countries shared with the UK approaches to security that would be harder to pursue after Brexit without the active support of the UK itself, and were largely sceptical about the need for further defence integration in the EU. In general, though, interviewees felt that the character of the European security environment post-Brexit is very difficult to forecast and the many factors that will contribute to shaping it are highly uncertain, complex, and intertwined. In these circumstances, scenario planning methodologies offer perhaps the best means of thinking about the future and informing policy decisions. The report thus identifies a range of possible post-Brexit scenarios as a vehicle for testing policies and identifying those likely to result in maximum benefit and minimum cost.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, European Union, and Brexit
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, Nordic Nations, and Baltic States