On Tuesday 10 June, the European Commissioner for Defence, Andrius Kubilius, warned against a US withdrawal from Europe, saying that the European preparedness in the area of defence was “insufficient”.
Preparedness “requires an urgent build-up and a longer-term strategy to replace US capabilities in Europe”, he explained during a speech at the European Defence & Security Summit in Brussels (EBS). According to Mr Kubilius, at a time when the Americans are due to announce their future presence – in terms of both troops and equipment – in Europe after the NATO summit, during or at the end of the summer, it is necessary to “avoid a stormy divorce with our transatlantic partners and move towards a rational agreement with them on the implementation of a gradual division of responsibilities”. He estimated that the implementation of this agreement will take time. However, the Commissioner made it clear that the US disengagement from Europe did not mean “a US withdrawal from NATO”.
On the same day, the EU Council announced that it had taken note of the tenth progress report on the implementation of the 74 common proposals between the EU and NATO. Stressing that common security challenges call for a further strengthening of transatlantic cooperation, the report considers “the urgent need to enhance defence readiness, notably by increasing European defence spending, addressing capability shortfalls, expanding defence industrial capacity and ramping up defence production. These shared security challenges require further strengthening of the transatlantic cooperation through an even more robust, coherent and complementary NATO-EU partnership”.
According to the report, between June 2024 and May 2025, political dialogue intensified considerably, “reflecting the determination of the new EU and NATO leadership to bolster mutual understanding, increase interactions and further strengthen cooperation across all areas of the NATO-EU partnership”.
However, during a debate on this cooperation at the EBS summit, several speakers referred to the difficulties between the two organisations, particularly of a political nature. According to Rear Admiral Ignacio Cuartero Lorenzo, Director for Concepts and Capabilities, EU Military Staff, it is up to the members of the EU and NATO – 23 in common – to better coordinate the actions of each organisation and their interventions with these two organisations in order to create the necessary synergies.
While acknowledging difficulties at the political level, Cosmin Dobran, Director for Peace, Partnerships and Crisis Management at the European External Action Service, explained that cooperation between NATO and EU staff was working “extremely well”.
The new Chairman of the EU Military Committee, General Seán Clancy, felt that operational obstacles, such as information sharing, needed to be removed. “We absolutely must create the conditions for more concrete and deeper cooperation between the EU and NATO on a practical level, and remove all the obstacles we see on the operational side of the EU and NATO”, he explained.
According to the report, NATO and the EU have strengthened their cooperation in a number of areas, including resilience and preparedness, as well as cyber security. This cooperation has continued on space, military mobility, maritime security and the fight against terrorism.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/h8v (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)