The war in Ukraine has fundamentally altered Europe’s internal and external reference points of what was once a European security order. To its credit, Europe has been quick to condition itself to radically changed realities. A lot of that re-conditioning continues to be economically painful and is on a constant lookout for openings amid an era of poly-crises.
But at a fundamental level, Europe mulls a viable security architecture for itself, best expressed through its recently held flagship security dialogue with two major verticals of engagement – one with NATO and the US and another with forging global defence partnerships; one extra layer of smaller but proactive deterrents, and several challenges.
Schuman Security and Defence Forum
The first edition of EU’s biennial security dialogue, The Schuman Defence and Security Forum, which falls under the aegis of the European External Action Service, was held on 20 and 21 March at the EU parliament in Brussels.
Not only is this dialogue a departure from the dominant geo-economic personality of the EU with its security outsourced to the US, it also merits attention for its singular emphasis on achieving strategic autonomy by building equal, pragmatic and flexible security partnerships across the globe as originally conceived in EU’s strategic compass. Does that mean the EU is looking for strategic autonomy? Quite the contrary.
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The two verticals of European security engagement
The future course of how Europe builds its security architecture will depend largely on how well it blends its dependence and deepening ties with NATO and its quest for strategic autonomy. From Europe’s perspective, these two verticals should complement each other. But can they?
The first vertical of EU security is, unarguably, deepening ties with NATO that the war in Ukraine has cemented.
The panel discussions at Schuman highlighted growing cooperation with organisations like the United Nations, the African Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions for crisis management and stabilisation. But EU’s evolving association with NATO remained the most pronounced of all.
The January 2023 EU-NATO Joint Declaration ramps up this partnership with a sharp focus on climate change, space, artificial intelligence, and emerging and disruptive tech. Increase in overlapping membership with Finland already in NATO, Sweden next in line, and Denmark incorporated fully into CSDP-Europe, transatlantic ties have never been so strong.
What is particularly noteworthy is the EU-NATO division of labour. The idea gaining ground through Schuman is that EU can best act as a security provider by adding “value” between internal and external security while NATO can take up collective defence under Article Five .
Transatlantic ties are also refurbished by the new EU-US defence cooperation of February 2023. This arrangement will provide a framework for consultations on several traditional and non-traditional security challenges between EU and the US in a way that ensures a more capable European Defence.
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Strategic autonomy for a global Europe
The second vertical is the quest for achieving more strategic autonomy. While this has been the mantra in internal discussions within the EU parliament and Commission for a few years, the war in Ukraine has pushed it to become “performative” in the true sense.
Schuman Forum highlighted the European Peace Facility (EPF)’s role as the first tool for EU to strengthen its own position as a global security provider by supporting its partners’ security objectives. Established as an off-budget instrument aimed at enhancing EU’s ability to prevent conflicts, build peace and strengthen international security, it has evolved into a major enabler for EU to take on a more global role.
For instance, EPF’s financial ceiling has been raised twice since the Russia-Ukraine war began. On 13 March 2023, EU decided to increase EPF’s financial ceiling to €7.979 billion until 2027. The most noteworthy facet of EPF is EU’s willingness to provide military support, training and equipment to partner countries, best elucidated in its support to Ukraine. At Schuman, the high representative Josep Borrel asserted that EPF is a truly global instrument and not limited to Ukraine, thereby signalling the adoption of the next military help to Niger and Somalia.
The above gets further credibility when juxtaposed with EU providing military training to 30,000 Ukrainian troops in 2023 and recently forming a consensus on sending one million ammunition shells to Kyiv.
The second tool is to foster better dialogues and consultations with key partners.
In line with emerging security domains, EU plans to further such engagement through its new space strategy and an updated maritime strategy. On 10 March, the European Commission and its high representative adopted the first-ever EU space strategy based on the four pillars of ensuring shared understanding, enhancing resilience, developing dual-use capabilities and fostering global partnerships. This strategy would draw on pooling member States’ space capabilities, space situational awareness and intelligence.
The same formula has been applied to utilising member countries’ deployments in the maritime domain under the EU’s coordinated maritime presence. It would enable the bloc to gain a more prominent global maritime presence to uphold a rules-based order by deploying member States’ naval and air assets on a voluntary basis.
Third, since these initiatives are aimed at countering emerging threats of sorts, they do get further stimulus from the new EU hybrid toolbox (EUHT) that was introduced a few months after the war in Ukraine. EUHT provides a framework for a coordinated response to hybrid campaigns affecting the EU and its member States. It also entails the development of the Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Toolbox (FIMI toolbox), which will strengthen EU’s ability to detect, analyse and respond to the threat, including by imposing costs on perpetrators. One of the earliest tests for the EUHT will be EU’s support for Moldova, which has claimed to be under a hybrid threat from Russia and looks forward to building a collective approach to resilience with the help of EUHT.
Ambitious as they may sound, the proof of the pudding will lie in the eating. How effectively and timely member States cooperate in either space or the oceans is a facet that will be revealed in time.
Proactive geometries of deterrence
Complementing the two verticals of EU’s emerging security architecture are deterrents like the European Sky Shield Initiative spearheaded by Germany, the Nordic Air Defence Pact, UK’s defence partnerships with EU and Norway, each of which fills a part of the larger security anxiety in Europe today.
However, there are myriad challenges for a bloc that functions on the consensus of its 27 member States. It will be an uphill task for it to co-develop norms around emerging threats—both internally and globally—in a cost and time-effective manner.
France and Germany’s nuanced approach toward Russia has often been cited as a caveat in EU’s unity with Ukraine in the long run. The bigger European economies’ proposition to China has already become a complex terrain of balancing de-risking with trade benefits . Hungary’s affability to both Russia and China also vexes EU unity.
Furthermore, Poland, which has taken the lead in providing military aid to Ukraine, has unsettled issues with Brussels over rule of law and withheld Covid-19 funds.
Where does it take the cooperation between India and the bloc?
Despite differences on the Russia-Ukraine war, a global EU is in the long-term interest of India and vice versa. India is already a key partner in EU’s Indo-Pacific initiatives and has excellent and deepening bilateral relations with several member States like France, Germany and Italy. Europe’s latest focus on equal and flexible partnerships for more comprehensive security mean EU has struck the right opening notes to emerge as a global security provider. But Europe has to walk the talk. How far the bloc is willing to go to accommodate India’s security challenges in a truly egalitarian manner shall be revealed in the months and years lying ahead of us.
There is a rise of the global south fuelling a multipolar world order where a group – of what Europe identifies as consequential hedgers – refuses to identify with Europe’s problems being their own problems.
The era of the peace dividend is over for Europe. The continent stands on an inflection point from where it can either transform for the better or degenerate into a darker conundrum. EU’s quest for steady security architecture reflects the owl of Minerva starting its flight when the shades of twilight have fallen.
The writer is an Associate Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Center, at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
Source: The Print
