The heads of state or government of the European Union have welcomed the “momentum” and the “progress” made in the various projects related to European defence and have undertaken to submit new strategic orientations at their next meeting, to be held in June.
The European leaders did not spend much time discussing European defence at their formal meeting on Thursday 9 March. In the single paragraph of conclusions of the President of the European Council - Poland having refused to approve the formal conclusions of the summit - they particularly expressed their satisfaction at the progress made on several projects.
In particular, they referred to the meeting of the European defence ministers on Monday 6 March, although the only tangible breakthrough was the establishment of a military capability for planning and the conduct of non-executive missions (see our bulletin Europe Diplomacy & Defence, EDD 966). These ministers will, furthermore, take stock once again in May of all issues still dividing the member states, such as the work on permanent structured cooperation.
“Building on that momentum, work must be taken further with even greater determination and speed”, the heads of state or government stressed. They recalled that a high-level conference on security and defence is to be held in Prague on 9 June, before concluding by stressing their commitment to discuss European defence again at their meeting of 22 and 23 June. This will also be the opportunity to provide new strategic orientations, they said.
The French President, François Hollande, said that all of these efforts will feed into the “development of defence capabilities, a greater budgetary effort, but also to greater coordination in the defence policies”. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, particularly welcomed the speed of the progress and the fact that the Europe of defence had effectively been relaunched. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)