The EU promotes its plans for military autonomy despite the harmony with Washington

The European summit that ends this Friday will reaffirm the will of the European Union to cut the military dependence of the United States, a boost to the European defense plans that comes despite the better harmony with the administration of Democrat Joe Biden.

The draft summit declaration nonetheless underscores the commitment to close collaboration with NATO.

And in a gesture designed to calm the resentment of some allies at the growing European independence, the 27 leaders of the Union have invited the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, to the meeting, who reminds time and again that the EU, by itself, "it cannot guarantee the security of Europe."

The Twenty-seven summit, to be held by videoconference, comes after the first contacts of the main European capitals with the new American president and after the participation of his Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, in the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers last Monday.

Washington has underlined since Biden's inauguration its intention to resume cooperation with Europe after four years of transatlantic brawl under the presidency of Donald Trump.

"Blinken made it clear to us that the US sees Europe not only as a partner, but as a friend," said the High Representative for EU Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, about Monday's meeting.

But better harmony with Washington will not slow down the EU's efforts to advance its strategic autonomy, as the more Atlanticist partners would like.

"We reaffirm that, in view of growing global instability, the EU needs to assume greater responsibility for its security," the draft of the declaration of the European summit held this Thursday and Friday emphatically states.

The text confirms the will of the Twenty-seven to "increase the EU's capacity to act autonomously".

And it is committed to improving the strength and preparation of the EU "to be able to deal effectively with all security threats and challenges."

European strategic autonomy is an old Brussels aspiration, pushed unsuccessfully periodically after every security crisis that European partners have been unable to resolve on their own, from the Balkan wars to those in Syria to Libya.

But plans for a common defense and security policy have accelerated in recent years, in particular during the breakdown of the transatlantic relationship between 2017 and 2020. And the health crisis caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus a The beginning of last year has further accentuated the urgency to develop European sovereignty in multiple fields.

"The covid-19 pandemic has made us even more aware of the need to improve our autonomy," Borrell said last Tuesday during a meeting with the Atlantic Council, a US think tank very favorable to the transatlantic relationship.

The head of community diplomacy acknowledged: "We had become used to being under the umbrella of the United States, but Washington is right when it asks us to be more autonomous."

The new European military initiative will take shape in the so-called “strategic compass”, a long-drawn-out document that Brussels hopes to conclude in March 2022, during the French presidency of the EU.

The preparatory work, developed during the German presidency of the second half of 2020, has already advanced on its main lines, which Borrell will present this Friday to the partners at the European Council.

The project revolves around four axes: crisis management, capacity building (infrastructures and weapons), resilience (reducing dependence from the digital to the pharmaceutical field) and relations with third countries.

"This framework will be the basis for the ambition of our defense policy," said the French Minister of Defense, Florence Parly, during a recent meeting in Brussels with EL PAÍS and other European media.

Parly believes that such a policy will range from ongoing operations like the Sahel against jihadist terrorism to "a growing presence in the East, Asia and the Pacific."

Europe attaches increasing importance to the prevailing instability in some maritime areas, in particular in a Pacific where China, according to the West, does not always respect international law.

But the French enthusiasm for strategic autonomy is not shared by all European partners and some even view it with distrust for fear that it will harm the Atlantic Alliance.

The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, has exceptionally invited NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg to this Friday's meeting in order to calm the most restless delegations.

"The countries that are, so to speak, on the front line and in front of large neighbors, fear that the European defense will weaken NATO, and it is a matter of making it clear that it will not be like that," say diplomatic sources, alluding to Poland. and the Baltic countries.

Stoltenberg is in favor of European partners strengthening their military capabilities.

"But the EU cannot defend Europe, the EU cannot replace NATO", stressed the Secretary General of the Alliance during a conversation with several international media, including EL PAÍS, a few hours before speaking at the Conference of Munich Security held last Friday.

The leader of the organization recalled that "80% of NATO's military spending corresponds to allies that do not belong to the EU."

And he stressed the importance of non-EU allies for the security of the Old Continent "such as Norway and Iceland in the north, Turkey in the south or the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States in the west."

The military spending of the European partners has increased uninterruptedly since 2015 and in 2019 reached 186,000 million euros, the highest figure in the last 15 years, according to the annual report of the European Defense Agency.

The sum of the national defense budgets triples Russia's military spending.

But the synergies between the EU members are scarce and the duplication of spending abundant.

According to the Agency, in 2019 the joint acquisition of capacities was only 7,000 million euros.

And only 20% of material tenders are made jointly, far from the 35% that has been set as a target.

France and Germany lead, respectively, the two largest industrial projects in the sector, for the construction of an air combat system (FCAS, for its acronym in English), with significant Spanish participation through the company Indra, and another land (MGCS) ).

But cooperation is far from fluid and industry sources say that the fighter plane project, in particular, has come to be in jeopardy due to friction between the French and the Germans.

These frictions and the distrust of other partners, such as Italy or Poland, who fear being subjected to an excessive domination of Franco-German industry, complicate and delay the birth of a genuine European defense policy and a pan-European military industry.

• Borrell advocates giving the EU a “strategic autonomy” that allows it to solve its problems

"Industries related to defense are facing an economic and political context that is completely changing and that calls for responses that go beyond the national level," warns a document from the European Commission on the challenges of community defense.

The date of the document: January 24, 1996. A quarter of a century later there has been progress, but the integration of European defense policy remains a pending issue for Brussels.