In a report published on Monday 18 May, CEPS, RUSI, Clingendael and IEP/Bocconi proposed three ways of strengthening Europe’s defences: a more European NATO, a new European multilateralism or EU-led defence cooperation.
According to the working group, European decision-makers are at present in no position to discard any of these options. It states that the Europeanisation of NATO should be pursued as a priority which “would rebalance the transatlantic contribution to the Alliance and enable them to take it over if the US were to leave NATO”.
The four think tanks point out that a new European multilateralism provides additional means for preparation and action by subsets of allies should the US, or any other ally, render NATO dysfunctional from within. So, in their view, Europeans should take steps now to strengthen, connect and consolidate existing “minilateral” security agreements and create a political consultation and decision-making mechanism similar to NATO’s North Atlantic Council, such as a European Security Council, to enable a coalition of the willing to act.
Finally, with regard to cooperation, the working group claims that the obstacles preventing NATO and the EU from creating maximum synergies in capability development should be removed, including by opening up the SAFE loan instrument to a wider group of like-minded countries, speeding up the integration of the Ukrainian defence industry into the single market and strengthening reciprocity within the transatlantic industrial alliance.
To see the report: https://aeur.eu/f/ly4 (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)