The High Representative of the Union, Kaja Kallas, announced on Tuesday 1 September, that she would launch a new High Level Group on Defence next week.
This group will be made up of senior political and military officials from several EU countries, as well as from the United Kingdom and Ukraine, she explained at the end of the informal meeting of European defence ministers in Wicklow, without revealing any names.
“We have not been fast enough to cover the gaps in Europe’s conventional power within NATO. (....) The idea is to really look beyond institutions and to have the brightest minds come together to provide ideas, not on where the gaps are, but actually how we can fulfil the gaps in the shortest timeframe possible in the most effective way”, she summed up.
According to the High Representative, the idea is to provide Member States, but also the institutions, with ideas on how to improve and accelerate their actions in order to achieve concrete results and fill the identified capability gaps, while also taking account of the global economic context.
Under Ms Kallas’s aegis, the group will compile its conclusions in a report setting out concrete recommendations for Europe’s defence; no publication date has been announced. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)