BREAKINGVIEWS-Why a defence boss could boost Europe’s revival

By Pierre Briancon

BERLIN, April 22 (Reuters Breakingviews) - How to spend 640 billion euros? That’s the amount that European governments, including Britain, would pour each year into their militaries if they make good on their stated intention to beef up defence spending to 3% of GDP. Finding the money is the immediate challenge, given weak growth and heavy debt loads in many countries. A longer-term task is making sure that all the extra investment follows a coherent strategy. It calls for a new figurehead who can coordinate cross-border military projects and keep governments on track. In other words, Europe needs a defence czar.

After years of under-investment, the region’s defence industry is fragmented along national lines and subscale relative to the United States. Europe would struggle to fight a major war with Russia in the short term. EU members only spend 4.5% of their collective military budgets on research and development – a third less, percentage wise, than the United States. Imports account for 75% of European military procurement. The three Europe-made fighter jets – the Eurofighter, Dassault Rafale and Saab’s Gripen – only make up a third of the region’s fleet. And RTX RTX.N, the $170 billion U.S. contractor, has a market capitalisation that is almost equal to the combined value of its three largest European rivals: Germany’s Rheinmetall RHMG.DE, Britain’s BAE Systems BAES.L and France’s Thales.

European governments have now recognised the need to make up for lost time by turbocharging their military spending. What’s missing is someone who can knit together the disparate plans and make sure that Britain, France, Germany and other major powers avoid backsliding and wasteful duplication.

The EU is not the right forum for these discussions. The United Kingdom, which is not a member, has the same interests as the rest of the region in resisting Russian aggression amid a wider pullback from the United States. The same goes for fellow non-member Norway. Meanwhile, some EU countries are reluctant to increase their defence spending, either because they are led by friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin, like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, or because they have long adopted a neutral status, like Austria and Ireland. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is the wrong person to take a lead on the matter, not least because defence is not part of her remit. A better forum would be a new, formal organisation, like a smaller Europe-focused NATO, composed of what UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called the “coalition of the willing” – an ad hoc group that would include EU states that agree on the Russian threat, as well as Britain and Norway.

A defence czar would make sure that Europeans not only spend more on their defence, but spend better. Take the infamous case of a simple piece of ammunition, the 155-millimetre artillery round, which has helped Ukraine hold positions along its 1,000-kilometre front line. EU members missed a deadline to provide Kyiv with 1 million shells last year, prompting them to ramp up production by opening new plants. But Ukraine was also hampered in using this ammunition by the fact that Europeans furnished it with 10 different types of howitzers, the systems that fire the shells, some of which even had their own variants. And the cost of these weapons varies widely – between 6 million euros and 11 million euros apiece in the EU, compared with less than 2 million euros in the United States, according to the Bruegel think tank. The main job of a future European defence czar would therefore be to harmonise procurement requirements, and nudge national armies to better define their standard equipment.

The last argument for a new European defence leader is that national governments have been slow to respond to the new challenge. Despite all the meetings, reports, white papers and spending promises of the past months, Ukraine still lacks crucial material. Military spending has not increased yet, and defence companies are still waiting for actual orders before building new production capacity. Some debates have not even begun. Examples include whether conscripted armies will play a role in Europe’s defence, and what type of equipment should be prioritised: drones or fighter jets, nuclear weapons or conventional forces, submarines or battle tanks? Furthermore, further consolidation of the European defence industry will require a nudge from above.

EU finance ministers have started discussing a Bruegel proposal, commissioned by the Polish government, to create a European Defence Mechanism to help finance higher military spending. It would be a step in the right direction because it would be open to both EU and non-EU countries, would be financed by joint borrowing, and its decisions would be taken by simple or qualified majorities, which would avoid paralysis. It would make sense for any future European defence czar to lead this body, if it ever becomes a reality, as a key part of his or her responsibilities.

The right candidate would need political heft and knowledge of the military world. Boris Pistorius, who has been Germany’s defence minister since 2023, would be a good candidate, if he was not likely to keep his job in the new conservative government of Friedrich Merz. Ben Wallace, the former UK defence secretary and British army officer, would also fit the requirements. So would Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who morphed in the last five years from spendthrift to defence hawk, though she would have to step down ahead of a general election due by next year. Another possibility would be former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose current position as NATO secretary general seems less enticing given American backsliding on defence commitments under President Donald Trump.

Whether or not European leaders are willing to relinquish control remains to be seen. But any progress toward a common European defence policy will remain incremental until they delegate real power to someone who can move things forward.

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