Strategic Compass and the EU-NATO relations in the field of security and defence

By Danielle Piatkiewicz, Radim Samek, Dr Peter Stepper, Dr Małgorzata Bonikowska, Katarína Jurišová this article was originally published in EUROPEUM, in October 2021.

EU added value in the defence sphere

● Coming to an consensus on unresolved issues such as migration, lack of military cooperation, diverging interpretations of what the rule of law entails, and unpacking the difficulties experienced in agreeing on a common response to mitigate the effects of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemics, climate change and even approaches towards China and Russia, remain the key requirements for the EU’s added value.26 In short, in order to create a clear compass, EU member states will need to show political will in order to achieve anything discussed within the security and defence sphere.

● The EU has a lot of untapped potential and a vast portfolio of instruments that can help develop capabilities in the short- and long-term, including cooperating with industry and the tech base, as well as the understanding of the processes required for developing capabilities that include regulations and processes that need to be streamlined to be used to its fullest. The EU can apply both soft and hard power, and apply it towards the relevant security concerns unique mixture of tools.27

● At the other end of the spectrum, many issues around the EU’s strategic responsibility have been questioned, especially as regards such instruments as the EU battlegroups that have never been used. Supporters state that battlegroups are the beginning of an evolution that will eventually lead to a larger force, and thanks to a new EUR 5 billion fund for military operations under the European Peace Facility (EPF), it can defray costs better than the individual battlegroups, which so far have been mainly funded by individual countries.28 But that question can only be answered in the future.

Military industry cooperation and unification of equipment

● Debate over Europe’s limited military capabilities, gaps in technological innovation, lagging defence industrial base, and national defence expenditures have all led to concerns around the “institutional and policy efforts to converge European strategic needs, advocate more coherent and interoperable military capabilities, and avoid further duplication in the research and development (R&D) of weapons systems”. The aim was to ensure financial incentives for the EU defence sector and encourage cross-border collaboration, by developing a more integrated and competitive defence industry through providing, as some authors claim, “feasible solutions to improve the EU’s strategic autonomy as part of a broader effort to mitigate new internal and external security threats”.29

● France and Germany took the initiative in these efforts, leading the EU towards establishing the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and other internal security structure such as the European Defence Fund (EDF) and Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), which have added to the region’s security arsenal by pooling European finances, capacity, and military capabilities in pursuit of European strategic autonomy, forming a stronger pillar of NATO. The EU’s European Defence Fund (EDF) marked an unprecedented shift toward a stronger EU approach towards defence industrial policy, specifically with regards to market regulation, capability development and arms export policy, and represented the shift in the way the EU viewed and invested in defence. The EDF would place the EU among the top defence research and technology investors in Europe and ideally encourage more spending by Member States, especially if they use it to get co-financing for some of the projects planned in the PESCO format, under which they can work in smaller groups on more ambitious capability projects. EU Member States should make full use of all EU defence initiatives so that they can support standardisation and increase interoperability of both forces and equipment in missions and operations in both the EU and NATO context.

● One of PESCO’s commitments states that participating Member States should increase and aim at 2% of defence expenditure on defence R&D. This target helps NATO too, as it enhances R&D of NATO Member States as well. Currently, 38 out of 46 PESCO projects are fully in line with NATO Defence Planning Process priorities. PESCO was created to eliminate the fragmentation in weapon systems in Europe and to standardise the systems, so that the armed forces of EU Member States are more interoperable. This interoperability is very important for missions and operations in both the EU and NATO context. PESCO can fill in the gaps between NATO capabilities, especially as the fourth wave of PESCO projects is poised to come out with new ideas in November 2021. It can further eliminate fragmentation on defence issues and further standardise systems in order to achieve more interoperability both within the EU and NATO. In addition, the EU can connect its Multiannual Financial Framework, as part of Military Mobility to help fund infrastructure projects that are identified as improved and useful for NATO.

● The EU welcomed its first CARD Report in 2020. It identified the opportunities for EU Member States in which they can cooperate. CARD is thus a tool that helps Member States to enhance cooperation with other Member States, and can be used to start new collaboration projects (e.g. in PESCO framework).

● Through developing monetary incentives, the EU has been attempting to address the gaps within the European defence technological and industrial base, but has also seen limitations within Member States, especially on future mission objectives. Experts have called for the EU to think longer-term and not get trapped into a “CSDP silo”. Instead, the EU needs to operate with purpose. For example, the EU activities could contribute towards sharing the defence burden with the US, especially on regional and out-of-area operations with direct security, economic or political impact for the EU. In short, the EU should focus, identify, assess, and react to crises in its neighbourhood and evaluate what tools are already in place like PESCO, CARD and EDF rather than implementing new processes.

Military mobility

● The need to protect EU citizens from internal and external threats spurred the awareness around obstacles that may prevent or impede armed forces from moving effectively and swiftly across borders during crisis conditions. Military mobility aims to harmonise rules across EU Member States and to explore the potential of a civilian-military approach to infrastructure development.

● Military Mobility is a flagship of NATO-EU cooperation, and the EU has a lot to offer in this area. The measures taken to “correct this strategic vulnerability was military mobility, which enacted existing regulatory, administrative, and infrastructure inconsistencies and impediments across the territory of the EU that significantly hamper military exercises and training”.30 This has been achieved by funding dual use transport infrastructure and simplifying diplomatic clearances and customs rules, its aim is also to be used beyond the EU area, to support missions and operations under the CSDP. This contribution, has provided the EU with the ability to leverage existing policies in the civilian realm and apply it towards the military, which has created closer collaboration between different bodies at the EU level, including NATO however, it is worth noting the concerns around the speed in which this process takes. Military mobility has been described as an “essential piece in the EU’s ambition to become a stronger global actor”.31 By Connecting Europe Facility within the Multiannual Financial Framework of the EU (2021-2027) – funding aimed at improving infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.) is a practical tool for EU Member States that are also NATO Allies. Led by the Netherlands, military mobility was joined by the United States, Norway and Canada earlier this year (this was first PESCO project after the rules for third states participation in PESCO projects were agreed by PESCO participating Member States in November 2020). The project has become necessary because NATO “does not have the vocation to be building bridges and roads, rail connections [and] working on mechanisms for simplifying the bureaucratic and administrative procedures for transporting equipment from one country to another”.32

● The US joining just a few months ago highlights not only the rekindling of the transatlantic partnership. This also falls in line with the Visegrad countries outlook and concerns around Russia and the need to continued support in countering any threats from the East, especially with Ukraine.

Resilience

● The global pandemic has been a key example of why societies, especially democracies, need to invest and continue to build their resilience. At the EU level, the need to mitigate the economic and social impact of the pandemic and to make European economies and societies more sustainable, resilient, and better prepared for the challenges and opportunities of the green and digital transition, developed into a large-scale financial support for investment and reforms called the NextGenerationEU and outlined in the EU Strategic Agenda 2019-2024.

● While primarily focusing on economic resilience, the EU has been developing and bolstering its security outlook, particularly within the scope of the CSDP and especially in the case of crisis management. From Libya in 2003 to the recent situation in Afghanistan, the ability to assess the situation and react effectively has been a vital component and pitfall of the EU. As the EU faces the reality that war, whether in the field or in cyberspace, it is not out of the question as seen with tensions along its border with Belarus, Georgia, Crimea, and Ukraine.

Experts stated that no crisis should go to waste, the pandemic and situation in Afghanistan has given the EU an opportunity to reset the narrative and further invest in its defence, and the Strategic Compass can be projected to global friends and foes, where the EU see itself as a leader.

● The EU should look at how NATO has approached resilience, especially the ability for Member States to resist and recover from a major shock such as a natural disaster, failure of critical infrastructure, or a hybrid or armed attack. In this context, resilience is a “society’s ability to resist and recover from such shocks and combines both civil preparedness and military capacity. Civil preparedness is a central pillar of Allies’ resilience and a critical enabler for the Alliance’s collective defence, and NATO supports Allies in assessing and enhancing their civil preparedness”33 as embedded in Article 3. NATO has established baseline requirements for national resilience against which Allies can measure their level of preparedness; these requirements reflect the core functions of continuity of government, essential services to the population and civil support to the military.

● This is an area where the Strategic Compass can ensure that Member States are equipped with better civilian preparedness tools to reduce potential vulnerabilities. NATO highlights those military forces, especially those deployed during crises and war, rely on the civilian and commercial sectors for transport, communications, and even basic supplies such as food and water, to fulfil their missions – the EU has the political means to ensure that this is supported and implemented.

● Strengthened political engagement, capacity building, and resilience enhancing help to confront spill-over threats such as irregular migration, resource scarcity, and a weakly-governed space, will be critical for the EU to address and should be highlighted in the Strategic Compass.

Cybersecurity

● Cybercrime has become a key challenge to international security. The European Union is confronted with an increasingly challenging threat environment that is difficult to control, track, and defend with conventional military weapons. Cyberwarfare has entered the security paradigm, in recent years, and escalated to a substantial degree with emerging Russian and Chinese state-backed hackers. In turn, initiating attacks against countries to various degrees, including meddling with the very democratic practices of political elections in the West.34 The borderless nature of cyber space still proves to be a great challenge as it is difficult to catch and prosecute such an attacker, especially if its origins are from a state.

● On 17 May 2019 the Council of the European Union adopted the Council Decision (CFSP) 2019/797 and Council Regulation (EU) 2019/796 concerning the restrictive measures against cyber-attacks threatening the Union or its Member States.35 The new legislation evolved from the conclusions on a framework for a joint diplomatic response to malicious cyber activities (the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox). It was adopted by the Council in 2017 and set a framework of measures against possible aggressors such as Russia. Based on the Toolbox and its principles, the Council Decision and Regulation of May 2019, form an important step forward to face emerging security threats in cyberspace at the EU level.36 In the last seven years, almost EUR 5 billion in grant assistance was delivered, with a special emphasis on the resilience against hybrid and cyber threats and disinformation.37 The EU’s counter-hybrid toolbox is therefore the key to building societal resilience against hybrid attacks, especially protecting critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, and countering disinformation.

● Cyber defence is one of the areas in which the EU and NATO are strengthening their cooperation. In February 2017, they signed an agreement aimed at strengthening their cooperation and ability to defend Allies from hybrid attacks.38 The Technical Arrangement on Cyber defence aims to facilitate technical information sharing between NCIRC and CERT-EU to improve cyber incident prevention, detection and response in both organisations. Such cooperation demonstrates how NATO and the EU can work together to enhance shared security. Resiliency in cybersecurity requires all involved countries in which illegal cyber activities are committed, to take the necessary legislative measures on an international level together.

● The signing of this agreement is an important milestone to enhance NATO and EU cooperation that is also one of the objectives of the 2016 NATO Summit in Warsaw and the EU Global Strategy.39 Alongside this, the Strategic Compass aims to provide a framework that will help focus Member States’ efforts on security and defence, and that strengthens members’ capabilities against hybrid threats, including the EU Hybrid Fusion Cell and Helsinki European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, alongside NATO. With NATO’s efforts, the EU is supporting Member States in the development of their defence capabilities through PESCO and the EDF.40

● Enhancing the EU ́s capabilities to tackle hybrid threats has been an essential aspect of the EU’s security agenda in the last five years and will need to be addressed in the Strategic Compass. Experts stated that a cohesive approach towards countering malign actors will be the next big security challenge, as the next war will likely happen in cyberspace.

EU and NATO partnership in the face of new challenges

● Calling for closer EU and NATO cooperation, EC President von der Leyen recently stated that the EU needs to invest more in the joint-partnership, bolstered by the new EU-NATO Joint Declaration at end of the year. However, von der Leyen stated that the EU needs to do more in ensuring its own security and defence posture. She outlined three areas: providing stability in EU’s neighbourhood and across different regions, understanding the nature of the emerging threats including hybrid, cyber-attacks to the growing arms race in space and capitalising on the EU’s position as a “unique security provider” with a strong military and civilian presence that could step into missions where NATO or the UN will not be present.41

● This highlights that while the EU and NATO have different mandates when it comes to the defence and security of the region, their aims, and objectives primarily align and they have in some respects, have been mutually beneficial to each other.

● These exchanges are a concrete step towards closer cooperation but the need for mutual and realistic interests on future engagement and identifying mutual threats such as hybrid threats needs political backing. The Strategic Compass can offer an opportunity for more cooperation, and enabling a stronger role for the EU in the Euro-Atlantic space has been largely unexplored. However, experts have warned that the process will require patience to redefine the EU’s goals and means for achieving them in synergy with NATO.

Science

● To maintain military and political advantage in the current increasingly challenging geopolitical setting, the transatlantic community needs to keep and expand its technological edge over its competitors. In the military domain, as well as in the civil sector, emerging and disruptive technologies, especially in the context of a progressing digitalisation, are fundamentally shaping the posture of both NATO and the EU. Investing in defence research and development (R&D) is, thus, a key discipline which must remain among the top strategic priorities of both organisations. to take the necessary legislative measures on an international level together.

● At the forefront of NATO’s R&D efforts stand the Science and Technology Organization (STO) that ensures technological and scientific collaboration between allies. The backbone aspect of the NATO’s R&D is the strong transatlantic character of the cooperation. For many of the EU and NATO members, and especially the medium and smaller-sized countries such as the V4, the Alliance has been the favourable institution for R&D cooperation, because these countries benefit from the cooperation with US companies and can access technology and weapons they otherwise would not be capable of acquiring.42 However, despite those advantages, NATO remains an intergovernmental organisation with no sanctioning mechanisms for states not delivering on agreed targets, and also, different threat perceptions across the Alliance further limit R&D cooperation in certain programmes (e.g. ballistic missile defence).

● As a part of a wider geopolitical ‘awakening’ of the EU, 2016 marked a turning point in the EU’s defence research activities, with the establishment of the European Defence Fund (EDF) aimed at the strengthening of the interoperability of member-states’ armies and reducing duplication. Currently, the fund with a budget of EUR 7.9 billion makes the EU the third largest European investor in defence.43 The EU’s, very much like NATO’s, R&D activities have been plagued by different threat perceptions and perspectives on the EU’s role in the defence domain.

● Despite being obvious partners sharing a majority of members with overlapping interests and values, the NATO and EU cooperation in the field of R&D has been a constrained enterprise.

● Since the 2016 EU-NATO Joint Declaration that stressed, among other things, the need for a greater partnership in R&D,44 there has only been a little progress in finding synergies of both organisations. Today’s cooperation is limited to staff-to-staff interactions and a few occasional high-level meetings. These exchanges have been concerned mainly with research in AI, autonomous systems, and big data.

● Most generally, the reasons for difficulties in an EU-NATO R&D partnership lay the nature, and consequently strategic directions and needs, of both organisations.

● This lack of defined EU defence aims and tasks fundamentally blocks any enhanced cooperation with NATO both in R&D and generally. In other words, the EU must make it clear what kind of defence actor it wants to be and what weapons it will need because, for instance, focusing solely on threats from Russia may require in some cases different R&D investments than crisis management operations in Africa. While the Capability Development Plan and CARD clearly say what kind of capabilities EU Member States need, the Strategic Compass should help to answer these crucial questions.

Space domain

● Space is a very rapidly developing domain and currently faces unprecedented global competition in a changing geopolitical context. Space technology can optimise transport, improve crisis response in emergencies, secure banking transactions, help in the fight against climate change, increase security in relation to detecting illegal immigration or preventing cross- border organised crime. Using satellites, the EU as well as NATO, can respond to crises with greater speed, effectiveness and precision. These developments reflect the growing importance of space in our everyday lives and the functioning of modern societies, but also for defence and security.

● Safety and the proper functioning of space and terrestrial infrastructure is of key interest to both the EU and NATO, especially in order to protect communications, navigation and commerce. Equally important is the need to ensure that there is no disruption to supplies of technology, components and materials, as well as ensuring the stable and free access to space and freedom to exploit space. EU-NATO cooperation was intensified since the 2016 Warsaw Joint Declaration and reinforced by the 2018 Brussels Joint Declaration as strategic EU-NATO partnership. This cooperation is essential to address current security challenges.

● In the 2021 European Parliament (EP) resolution on EU-NATO, the EP underlined that space is a critical domain and that new technologies are rapidly enabling its use as one of the domains for defence. The EP underlined the need of enhanced cooperation in already existing EU programmes such as Galileo and Copernicus. Another area of potential further cooperation was identified to include the promotion of space safety standards and best practices. Other important interests of the EU were: the prevention of the weaponisation of space, safety of satellites in relation to the Space debris, cyber-attacks, and direct missile attack. The role of the EU Satellite Centre (EU SatCen) was highlighted.45

● NATO’s recent engagement in space began when at the 2018 Brussels Summit Allied leaders acknowledged that space is a highly dynamic and rapidly evolving area and agreed to develop a NATO Space Policy, which was subsequently adopted in 2019. For NATO, space is essential to the Alliance’s deterrence and defence and is invest¬ing over EUR 1 billion to procure sat¬ellite communications services for the period of 2020-2034. It is NATO’s largest ever investment in satellite communi- cations to date.46

● During the NATO Summit in 2021 it has been acknowledged that rapid advances in space are affecting the security of NATO and its Allies, stating firstly that attacks to, from, or within space present a clear challenge to the security of the Alliance, and could potentially lead to the invocation of Article 5.47 Secondly, the importance of space for NATO’s deterrence and defence was highlighted and so was the need to secure access to space services, products, and capabilities. Lastly, it was declared that NATO’s space awareness will be strengthened even further, with training and exercises, resilience, and innovation efforts already in place.48 In the Secretary General’s report – NATO 2030 – a transatlantic agenda for the future was proposed. Article 8 of the document highlighted the “Strengthened Resilience Commitment” that proposed for Member States to “step up efforts to secure and diversify their supply chains, as well as ensure the resilience of their critical infrastructure (on land, at sea, in space and in cyberspace) and key industries, including by protecting them from harmful economic activities”.49 Lastly, NATO also announced plans to develop a Strategic Space Situational Awareness System (3SAS) at NATO Headquarters.

● On the EU side, the space policy aims at leveraging the space sector for the promotion of social and economic benefits to citizens, fighting climate change and promoting technological innovation. Information from space is also used in case of disasters, such as, earthquakes, forest fires or floods. Space helps with situational awareness, decision-making and connectivity of technologies and systems. The Space Policy includes the EU Space Programme, EU Space Research and Innovation initiatives and investing in quantum technologies.

● The need for autonomy and security of EU space- based services was underlined in the EU Global Strategy (EUGS). The necessity to ensure stable and autonomous access to space was highlighted in the Council Conclusions in 2016. In response, capability projects were designed under the Permanent Structured Cooperation, the grants under Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR) and the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP). Outer Space has been identified as a key priority under the EU Capability Development Plan (CDP) and it has called upon a common European approach in CARD Focus Area “Defence in space”.

● Part of the core of the EU’s security and defence is ensuring secure flows and uses of data and signals, as well as communication, and reducing the possibilities of jamming and eavesdropping of data signals. Therefore, the EU plans to invest in quantum technologies as well as build a full Quantum Information Network (QIN) by 2034 under the 2028-2034 MFF. Protecting critical infrastructure and supply chains is in line with the EU resilience and autonomy efforts.50

Climate

● The securitisation of climate change is on the international agenda, creating concerns about the appropriateness of security responses. Tackling climate change is one of the most obvious areas where action at a supranational level is the most efficient and effective. Both the EU and NATO have identified climate change as an international issue. The great scale of the climate emergency, and measures needed to become carbon- neutral by 2050, have a greater chance of succeeding with intergovernmental organisations, such as the EU and NATO, in mitigation. Not to mention that risk management policies can be shared and adopted across a wide range of countries more quickly and efficiently. Growing concern of climate-induced migration and the cost accompanying climate change damage is estimated to cost the EU economy over EUR 65 billion a year by 2100.51 Climate change does not know borders and is therefore one of the defining challenges of our times, for both the EU and NATO.

● While other international organisations are better equipped to lead the fight against climate change, NATO can play an important role with the EU by its side. It is without a doubt that climate change impacts all allies and the state of its security. The 2010 Strategic Concept states that climate change is a driver of NATO’s security environment.52 It has become increasingly clear that climate change has consequences that reach the very top of the security agenda. This includes flooding, disease and famine, resulting in mass migration in areas already prone to conflict. This will only be intensified by drought and crop-failure, leading to intensified competition for food, water and energy. It is here that NATO can play a vital role by providing security for the EU Member States in such times where the EU is not prepared itself. On 14 July 2021, the European Commission adopted a series of legislative proposals setting out how it intends to achieve climate neutrality in the EU by 2050, including the intermediate target of at least a 55% net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.53 Both the EU and NATO aspire to support implementation of the Paris Agreement, and NATO Allies have recognised the need for an effective and progressive response to the urgent threat of climate change.

● On 23-24 March 2021, NATO Foreign Ministers endorsed NATO’s Climate Change and Security Agenda, which provides “a 360-degree approach and encompasses measures to increase both NATO’s and its Allies’ awareness of the impact of climate change on security, along with developing clear adaptation and mitigation measures, and enhanced outreach, while ensuring a credible deterrence and defence posture, and upholding the priorities of the safety of military personnel and operational and cost effectiveness”.54

● To be effective, however, the EU needs to find a common voice on the security implications of climate change and recognise that due to the very nature of EU governance and decision-making, Member States do not have to address the exigencies of climate change by themselves but instead can count on each other as a union. The recently updated defence policy underlines the importance of the strategic partnership between the EU and NATO and is fundamental to addressing the security challenges facing the EU and its neighbourhood with climate change.55

● Allies should invest in green technologies for the ultimate purpose of improving military effectiveness and maintaining competitive advantages among rivals. In 2014, NATO was thinking ahead and adopted the Green Defence framework, which aspires to reduce the environmental footprint of its military operations and improve NATO’s resilience by investing in green technologies that reduce fuel consumption, energy dependencies, mission footprints and long, vulnerable supply lines.56 The EU and NATO have also agreed to initiate a regular high-level climate and security dialogue to exchange views and coordinate further actions.57 To this end, strategic planning is needed to build climate change resilience and civil preparedness. Not to mention, the resilience of military installations and critical infrastructure that will be needed as climate change will create more conditions to conduct military operations. To this end, EU Member States should be inspired to follow suit and take NATO as a prime example of how radical change is necessary and can be done effectively with proper governance.

● NATO and the EU can work together on increasing their situational awareness, early warning signs, and information sharing on climate and security and can utilise NATO’s Centre of Excellence on Climate and Security as a common platform. With more investments into renewable technologies and smart telecommunication grids that are able to withstand weather events and cyberattacks, all the allies would gain by becoming more effective and resilient. Moreover, NATO should reinvigorate, reassess, and revise its 2014 Green Defence framework considering evolving challenges and emerging green technologies, and work with the EU on the Green Deal to encompass more of a military-security paradigm. To this end, all allies would retain their confidence and strength as a union and organisation by tackling climate change together.

Energy security

● Energy security plays an important role in the stability and common security of NATO allies and EU Member States. The disruption of energy supplies could affect security within the territories of NATO members and partner countries and could have a direct impact on NATO’s military operations.58

● Since Russia cut off gas flowing through Ukraine in 2006 and 2009, energy security has been on the agenda of NATO’s Member States. As recently as 21 July 2021, the U.S. issued a special briefing on the security implications and risks of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in Germany on European energy security and on Ukraine and frontline NATO and EU countries.59 The main concern for the EU and NATO at this time is Russia’s use of energy as a geopolitical weapon and the vulnerability of countries like Ukraine, which are dependent on Russian gas and transit fees, to Russian maleficent activities.60

● NATO also relies on a stable and reliable energy supply, suppliers and energy resources, including the integration of sustainable energy sources, and the interconnectivity of energy networks, which are all critical importance to increase resilience against external political and economic pressure.61 It is important to ensure that the members of the Alliance, particularly the EU, are not vulnerable to political or coercive manipulation of energy tactics. EU Member States should continue to seek further diversification of their energy supplies, and to reduce the reliance on external energy sources. For NATO, this is important because energy developments can have significant political and security implications and affect all partners. NATO should increase their capacity to support national authorities in protecting critical infrastructure relating to energy networks, including against malicious hybrid and cyber activity.62

● The Strategic Compass has an opportunity to distinguish how EU instruments and mechanisms can be utilised for mutual assistance and solidarity with NATO.63 Any strategy to enhance the Union’s resilience in security and defence requires an emphasis on civil and societal preparedness and especially when it comes to energy security.

● For the EU’s military level of ambition, the reality of available capabilities must be factored in, and serious shortfalls remain in the energy sector whereas Member States are not equipped to handle a threat on vulnerable infrastructure. Not to mention, alternative sources of energy are limited to meet the high demands of the growing economies. Crisis management is needed given the Union’s trading power, and the EU, together with NATO, needs to focus on the physical protection of the global commons, especially energy pipelines.64

● While drafting the Strategic Compass, the EU must define more precisely its military level of ambition and what it implies for capability development and partnerships. In short, the Strategic Compass should contribute, alongside NATO, in raising the civilian awareness of the multidimensional character of today’s security threats, particularly EU’s energy dependencies or foreign direct investment in critical European infrastructure.

Emerging and disruptive technologies

● Emerging disruptive technologies (EDTs) range from artificial intelligence (AI), big data, autonomous systems, hypersonic weapons and robotics, among others. EDTs have become a reoccurring topic in both the EU and NATO context, as debates around how to enhance the Member State’s ability to counter and prevent these threats continue to dominate the security and defence field.

● At a recent meeting hosted by the European Defence Agency and the Portuguese Ministry of Defence (Presidency in the Council of the EU), senior representatives discussed the need to “stimulate synergies between NATO, the European Commission and EDA, taking advantage of civil-military cooperation and the dual-use nature of technological development”.65 Specifically, the need to innovate and change the way the organisations operate and think in this sphere has been discussed. The growing strategic importance of “cross- fertilization between civil-military industries” was behind the European Commission Action Plan to increase the synergies between civil, defence and space industries. As highlighted in the previous sections, the EU and NATO have taken strides in developing these areas and there remains an untapped potential for more integration and collaboration.

● However, in addition to the EU and NATO aligning further on these emerging challenges, regulation and policy tend to lag behind the rate of technological advancement and is an area that the EU should continue to develop as mentioned in the cybersecurity section.

● Established at the London NATO meeting in 2019, NATO Leaders agreed for an Emerging and Disruptive Technology Implementation Roadmap. The purpose was to help ”structure NATO’s work across key technology areas, and enable Allies to consider these technologies’ implications for deterrence and defence, and capability development”.66 In 2021, NATO Defence Ministers endorsed “Foster and Protect: NATO’s Coherent Implementation Strategy on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies” which focuses on fostering the development of dual-use technologies will strengthen the Alliance’s edge, while also creating a forum for Allies to exchange best practices that help protect against threats.

● As the Strategic Compass develops, the dual- use potential of space, cyber and emerging & disruptive technologies will continue to be driven by the civilian and commercial demand and supply. On the military side, there should be ample use of “existing EU dual- use capabilities (Galileo, Copernicus, etc.) as well as connecting to civilian-driven dual-use research and technology/development. The Technology Roadmap of the European Commission, to be ready by October 2021, is an important tool for prioritising the selection of investment under EU programmes”.67

● Coordination between the EU and NATO is not only important to avoid a duplication at both the civil and military usage of these technologies, but also to coordinate investment, channel resources and to make optimum use by the military of dual-use capability development. It has been recommended that together, the EU and NATO should “constitute a technology and innovation partnership to combine efforts in an area that is likely to be decisive in the next decades for the security and defence of all the Member States.68 The Strategic Compass along with the future NATO Strategic Concept remains a solid start to counter and mitigate threats from EDTs.

Conclusion

● Experts contributing to this piece have outlined the many challenges that the EU and NATO face, when it comes to developing and integrating their relative security and defence portfolios. However, what was emphasised most was the simple acknowledgement that both organisations, created for very different purposes – have the same goal in mind – to ensure and guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means. The EU and NATO have come a long way to establish cooperation in order to further this goal.

● The Strategic Compass aims to create a coherent and strategic approach to the existing defence initiatives and to bolster the EU’s security and defence policy, considering the threats and challenges that the EU is facing – not just for today but in the future. While this is in line with NATO’s goals as well, Europe should not abandon or slow down their investment and further interoperability in their security and defence capabilities, especially through initiatives such as PESCO and EDF, on a condition that duplication of effort with NATO is avoided.

● Experts discussed how in the short-term, ramifications of the pandemic and the diverging perspectives on the future of the EU and NATO maygenerate a temptation to decrease defence integration and funding for EU and NATO capabilities. In the long term, large-scale questions about how and where Europe sees themselves as a democratic leader and defender of the rule of law will also need to be addressed. To counter these short- and long-term challenges as outlined in this chapter, the EU and its Member States need “a change of mindset to safeguard both their capacity to act autonomously on defence and the democratic quality of the integration process in this area”. If not, the Strategic Compass will remain just that, a compass to point the EU and its Member States into the direction it wants to take Europe but without concrete steps in order to turn words into action.69

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Radim Samek – Head of Department, European Defence Cooperation, Defence Policy Aspects, EU, European Defence Initiatives, CZ PRES preparations at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Czech Republic

Dr Peter Stepper – Senior Researcher at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Senior Lecturer at the National University of Public Service, Hungary

Dr Małgorzata Bonikowska – President, Centre for International Relations, Poland

Katarína Jurišová – Defence Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of the Slovak Republic to the European Union and PhD student at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia

Coordinator:

Danielle Piatkiewicz – Research Fellow, EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy