Beyond the regulatory state? The European Defence Fund and national military capacities

ABSTRACT

The European Union’s competences in armament policy have increased and its policy instruments have shifted towards military capacity-building. Illustrative of this, the European Defence Fund (EDF) finances cooperative research and development programmes in defence. Given military capacity-building’s centrality for statehood, I investigate the EDF to analyse the extent to which it challenges national prerogatives. I argue that the EDF represents a change away from the European Union’s regulatory role, and yet, does not correspond to a ‘positive’ supranational security state. Instead, the EDF represents a hybrid military capacity-building instrument, combining national ownership and EU (co-)financing of defence capacities. This argument builds conceptually on the state-building scholarship’s distinction between the centralisation of military and financial resources and adapts it to the EU multilevel governance. Theoretically, I build on constructivist public policy and core state power scholarship and demonstrate that the EDF’s hybrid design is the result of policy frame competition. The Commission-driven ‘efficiency’ frame, pushing for supranational centralisation of financial and military resources, was effectively tamed by member-states, whose preferences regarding defence and fiscal policies (‘distribution of competences’ frame) excluded EU ownership of defence assets and limited its financing role.

KEYWORDS:

• Armament
• European commission
• Eurobonds
• Military capacity-building
• Defence-industrial cooperation
• State-building

Acknowledgements

I thank Andreas Kruck, Moritz Weiss, and all special issue contributors for invaluable discussions at the LMU and at the 2022 ECPR Standing Group on the EU conference, where I presented this paper with the financial support of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. I am also grateful to the three anonymous reviewers, Claire Dupuy, Philipp Genschel, Stephanie Hofmann, Markus Jachtenfuchs and Frédéric Mérand for their kind and insightful comments. And I thank the Robert Schuman Centre, EUI, for providing me a wonderful working environment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Interview 1, European Commission official, DG Grow, 8/01/2016 (itw#1).

2 Interview 2, EDA official, 29/03/2017 (itw#2).

3 Itw#1.

4 Itw#1.

5 Interview 3, analyst, European think tank, 22/03/2017.

6 Interview 4, former Commission official, 07/07/2021 (itw#4).

7 Itw#1.

8 Interview 5, senior official, European defence firm, 04/07/2022.

9 Itw#4 & Interview 6, French diplomat, EU military body, 15/03/2017.

10 Interview 7, Commissioner King cabinet member, 09/07/2019.

11 Itw#2.

12 Itw#1.

13 Interview 8, senior representative, ASD, 02/07/2021 (itw#8); Interview 9, senior official, French MoD, 30/01/2020.

14 Interview 10, senior official, European Commission,, 2019/07/12 (Itw#10).

15 Interview 11, Military officer, EUMS/EEAS, 25/06/2019 (itw#11); Interview 12, member of the Swedish Parliament, 04/04/2021 (itw#12); Interview, Military officer, German MoD, 05/07/2022 (itw#13).

16 Itw#11&12; Interview 14, French diplomat, Prime Minister Office, 23/06/2022.

17 Itw#1&10.

18 Itw#10.

19 Interview 15, senior advisor, French MoD, 24/06/2022 (itw#15).

20 Interview 16, policy officer, NGO, Brussels, 13/08/2018.

21 Itw#15; Interview 17, French diplomat, Prime Minister office, 27/01/2020 (itw#17); Interview 18, German diplomat, 05/07/2022 (itw#18); Interview 19, senior official, EEAS, 07/07/2019.

22 Itw#3.

23 Itw#17.

24 Itw#15&18.

25 Itw#8.

26 Itw#10.

27 Itw#15&18.

28 Interview 20, staffer, Defence Committee, French National Assembly, 07/12/2016; itw#4.

29 Itw#10.

30 Interview 21, senior representative, defence firm, 14/06/2021 (phone).