After decades of defence co-operation with the US, European leaders started to take defence seriously, increasing military spending and strengthening ties with NATO, according to The Parliament.
NATO Headquarters and the European Union’s political institutions work to ensure European security. NATO was created in 1949 to contain the Soviet Union after its triumph in the war. Two years later, the main goal of the EU’s founders was to ensure a lasting peace between France and Germany.
Since then, both organisations largely achieved their goals and expanded their membership. Yet history knows few cases of coordination between them. Ian Lesser, head of the Brussels office at the German Marshall Fund, said:
NATO and the EU live in the same city but in different worlds.
However, the outbreak of war in Ukraine in February 2022 forced the two organisations to co-operate more closely. Since then, the EU oversaw more than 108 billion euros in aid to Ukraine, imposed 14 sanctions packages against Russia and banned imports of many of the country’s energy products. As a result, the bloc increasingly intruded into the pan-European security and defence sphere traditionally occupied by NATO.
NATO now comprises 32 allies, including 23 of the EU’s 27 member states, excluding Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, and Malta. Finland joined last year and Sweden joined earlier this year, abandoning more than 200 years of formal neutrality.
The United States accounted for about two-thirds of all NATO spending last year, due to its huge economy and defence spending of 3.5 per cent of GDP. Within NATO, this figure is second only to Poland, which spent 3.9 per cent of its GDP on defence.
Global threat
The possibility of former US President Donald Trump taking the presidency again has prompted European leaders to start seriously considering their own capabilities.
There is also a desire among European institutions to increase the EU’s role in defence. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the war in Ukraine was a “wake-up call for Europe to give itself the means to defend and protect itself and to deter potential adversaries.”
We will continue to extend our co-operation with NATO to cover all threats, including new dangers linked to cyber, hybrid or space, and to strengthen our transatlantic partnership.
The threat is reflected in official NATO documents. In July, at a summit in Washington to mark the alliance’s 75th anniversary, leaders made a joint statement that “China’s stated ambitions and coercive policies continue to challenge our interests, security and values.”
By the time escalation across the globe reaches an extreme point, European powers should be able to take care of themselves.
