The EU’s ‘mea culpa’ (and concerns): ‘We don’t have sufficient military capacity to defend Europe’

Brussels – Europe and defense do not get along. The EU ‘discounts’ a peace project that has invested so much in multilateralism and little, too little, in the ability to respond to external threats. The situation is that “we do not have sufficient capacity to defend the European Union,” Benedikta Seherr-Thoss, said the executive director of the Peace, Security, and Defense Department of the EU External Action Service at the European Defense and Security Summit. Certainly, the Russian-Ukrainian war was a moment of realization about the now structural delays, which new EU initiatives do nothing to solve. “We should have more resources than we have already put in,” acknowledges Seherr-Thoss. The 1.5 billion announced by von der Leyen, therefore, are not enough.

The European Defense Agency (EDA) also knows there are budget inadequacies. “We need a long-term financial perspective,” going beyond 2030, said Jiri Sedivy, EDA’s executive director, who is aware of a change of course that is underway, but that needs time. “We are at the beginning of a long journey of consolidation” in the sector, he confides.

The industry, however, has no time to waste.  Producing just one Leopard tank takes two years from when the order starts. Companies in the industry know that more needs to be done. They are ready to go but need the necessary inputs to meet the growing need for more security and defense. “We need to increase our production,” stresses Kevin Craven, CEO of ADS, the UK Defense and Aerospace Industry association, a  Asd Europe member. For this to be possible, governments need to increase orders, given the particular industry that sells to governments and not to private individuals. Demand must be stimulated to boost supply and, therefore, production.

Revitalizing production is just one of three priorities that Craven sees. He focuses on investment and a consortial logic. “We need to create the right environment for investment and then increase cooperation,” he added. “At the political, military, and industrial levels. We need to work more together“. What is sure is that “there is much more to be done stil”, reiterated Micael Johannson, CEO of Saab and ASD Europe vice-chairman. “We need big investments and long-term commitment”, i.e. a strategy lasting more than five years.

From Italy came the call for action on the labor market. “Defense is evolving, technology is evolving,” and today, there is a need for innovation that is impossible to carry forward, Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani said. “We have a problem: we don’t have enough qualified personnel” with digital skills, and this at a time when “digitization has become a defensive tool, and no one really understood it from the beginning.” If Europe has to compete and provide the security that Europe must buy today, “digitization, cybersecurity, and space must be central,” he added.

Regarding security, “Today we are 78 percent dependent on the outside,” Seher-Thoss noted. “We need to ask ourselves how dependent we want to be” on others. The answer he offers the audience is that “regardless of who wins the next U.S. election, the EU must do more”. General Claudio Graziano, president of Fincantieri, agreed on this. “We need to strengthen our industrial base. What happened showed that we are naked,” he said, referring to the Russian-Ukrainian war and how it reacted. “We don’t have ammunition,” he recalled.

The European Commission cannot do too much in this area. In the complexity of a still strongly national issue, the president of the community executive, Ursula von der Leyen, promised to do what she can, in a united way. “We must collectively send a strong signal to industry”, she enphasized. “This is why we will look at how tofacilitate offtake agreements for interested Member States. This would give our defence industry
companies stable orders and predictability in the long run”.