EU countries agreed to open a new phase of PESCO cooperation

"Starting a new phase by 2025. Ministers set specific political objectives and agreed to create incentives for participating Member States to fulfil their commitments," said the head of EU diplomacy Josep Borrell at a press conference in Brussels.

During the video conference, ministers discussed a "strategic compass" to ensure a better strategic focus on security and defence activities.

"European defence suffers from fragmentation, duplication and insufficient operational cooperation," Borrell pointed out.

Permanent structural cooperation between the 25 EU Member States in the field of defence is a relatively new initiative, as it is under three years old. It involves, among other things, the allocation of appropriate funds for investments in defence, the development of joint projects for defence capacity building or the merger of projects already implemented for specific operations.

The proposals adopted during the video conference of defence ministers indicate the need to fulfil more binding commitments and to achieve concrete results and tangible results of cooperation by 2025.

To date, the EU has accepted 47 PESCO projects covering cybersecurity, chemical, biological and nuclear threats, capacity building at sea, air and space. The adoption of new projects is on hold for the time being in order to enable the projects that have been notified to date to be implemented.

Ministers pointed to the importance of achieving tangible progress towards a coherent package of armed forces with a full spectrum of action that would strengthen the EU's military capabilities. The proposals also reaffirm key objectives related to investment in defence, objectives of more systematic use of EU defence tools in national planning processes, increasing the operational efficiency of the EU and developing the necessary military capabilities.

The review provides incentives to give PESCO greater visibility at political level and to increase transparency between Member States in fulfilling commitments, in particular in the operational area.

The proposals also identified a list of 26 PESCO projects to deliver concrete results or to achieve full operational capacity by the end of 2025.

Launched in December 2017, PESCO was a breakthrough in defence cooperation in the European Union. PESCO is a framework that allows willing and able EU Member States to develop defence capabilities jointly, invest in joint projects and increase operational readiness and the contribution of the armed forces.

So far, 25 EU Member States have made binding commitments that form the basis for PESCO. 46 cooperation projects are currently being implemented in various areas: training facilities, terrain systems, marine and air systems, cybercrime, and providing shared services or space projects.

The 25 countries participating in PESCO are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

On 5 November, Member States set the general conditions under which non-EU countries could exceptionally be invited to participate in individual PESCO projects, thus paving the way for stronger and more ambitious defence cooperation with other partners, including the United States.

Source: PAP