43 Contemporary Military Challenges, September 2021 – 23/No. 3
  Sodobni vojaški izzivi, september 2021 – 23/št. 3
V članku je predstavljen razkorak med tem, o čemer smo se na področju Skupne 
varnostne in obrambne politike Evropske unije že dogovorili in kar smo načrtovali, 
pa tega še vedno nismo dosegli. Osredotočamo se na njeno strateško avtonomijo 
in kredibilnost evropskih vojaških sil. Postopek nastajanja Strateškega kompasa je 
priložnost za ponoven premislek o evropski varnostni prihodnosti in poenotenju 
stališč držav članic ter za več realizma pri zmanjševanju razkoraka med retoriko in 
dejanji. Za njeno večjo strateško avtonomijo in kredibilnost vojaških sil predlagamo 
izboljšave na osmih področjih.
Skupna varnostna in obrambna politika Evropske unije, Strateški kompas, strateška 
avtonomija Evropske unije, evropske vojaške sile.
This article presents the gap between what has already been agreed and planned in 
the field of the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy in the past, 
and what we have actually achieved. We focus on the EU’s strategic autonomy and 
the credibility of European military forces. The process of creating the Strategic 
Compass is an opportunity to rethink Europe’s security future, to unify the positions 
of the Member States, and to increase realism in bridging the gap between rhetoric 
and action. For greater strategic autonomy and the credibility of the military, we 
propose improvements in eight actions.
EU Common Security and Defence Policy, Strategic Compass, European military 
forces.
EVROPSKA VARNOST IN OBRAMBA: 
PREBOJ ALI NADALJNJE ŽIVOTARJENJE 
Dick Zandee
EUROPEAN SECURITY AND DEFENCE: 
A BREAKTHROUGH OR SIMPLY 
MUDDLING THROUGH
DOI:10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.23.3.3
Povzetek
Ključne 
besede
Abstract
Key words
 44 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
»(…) the Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible 
military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to 
respond to international crises without prejudice to actions undertaken by NATO.«
The quote above could be attributed to the proponents of European strategic 
autonomy in the field of security and defence – a topic that has raised debate and 
generated criticism in recent years. Yet, the statement is part of the conclusions of 
the German EU Presidency issued at the Cologne European Council in June 1999 
(Cologne European Council). Almost the same sentence was included in the Saint-
Malo Declaration of December 1998 by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and 
French President Jacques Chirac, which paved the way for the EU to create a security 
and defence policy (Joint Declaration on European Defence Council Conclusions on 
Security and Defence, Council of the European Union, 2021). In other words, more 
than 22 years ago the Heads of State and the Government of the European Union 
had already declared that the EU should be able to act autonomously, including with 
military means if required, and in cases where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 
(NATO) would not undertake any action. 
More than two decades later, the EU is still struggling to realize this objective while, 
in the meantime, the United Kingdom has left the EU. Despite improvements in 
capability development, ‘credible military forces’ are lacking and, above all, the 
‘readiness’ to act has proven to be slow in most cases and with limited results. Over 
the past twenty-plus years, the EU has launched a considerable number of civilian 
missions and military operations, but the latter have been mainly at the low end of 
the spectrum, small in size and mostly to assist and train local or regional security 
providers. In ‘hot’ crises (such as Libya in 2011, Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014, and 
Mali in 2015) it has rather been ‘coalitions of the willing’ under the leadership of 
France, the United Kingdom and the United States that have intervened. Perhaps the 
most successful EU military operation has been Atalanta, the anti-piracy operation 
off the coast of Somalia which is still ongoing.
The turbulence in the Middle East and Africa (in the slipstream of the emergence of 
ISIS), the Russian annexation of the Crimea, and Moscow’s interference in eastern 
Ukraine, as well as the rise of China, have woken Europe up from its strategic 
slumber. Instead of a world that is evolving according to Western norms and values 
– democracy, the rule of law, human rights, multilateralism, international regimes 
to control the most dangerous weapon systems – the dominating ‘world affairs’ are 
now global competition, power projection, confrontation and the undermining of 
international cooperation. Today and in the future, Washington’s biggest challenge 
is China, which – contrary to Russia – poses an economic challenge of the first 
order, providing a new opponent for the US with a much stronger base for global 
power competition. As a result, Europe is no longer dominating on the American 
radar screen, and the US will continue to press its European partners to take more 
responsibility for their own security. Under President Trump the tone was harsh, if 
not aggressive. Under President Biden transatlantic relations have become much 
Dick Zandee
Introduction
 45 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
smoother, but although the tone is friendly, the song is the same: ‘Europe, do more 
for your own security and defence’. On top of this, the US expects its European 
partners to join Washington in opposing China – a topic that will be prominent on the 
agenda in the upcoming discussions on the new NATO Strategic Concept. 
This article analyzes the EU’s current efforts – the development of the Strategic 
Compass – to close the gap between the rhetoric statements on strategic autonomy 
and the practical goals that need to be achieved. The author proposes steps to be 
taken in the short term, taking into account what is realistically possible, and even 
more ambitious steps for the longer term. Eight action points are listed to achieve this 
objective, after which the author concludes the article by proposing the way ahead.  
 1  THE STRATEGIC COMPASS SO FAR
The changing international environment, with its complex set of challenges and 
threats – of both a military and non-military nature – is the driving factor for 
developing the EU Strategic Compass. The Compass should provide direction for the 
EU’s role in security and defence, and it should be »ambitious and actionable«. The 
Compass »will define policy orientations, concrete goals and objectives for the next 
5 to 10 years, in areas such as crisis management, resilience, capability development 
and partnerships« (Council Conclusions on Security and Defence, Council of the 
European Union, 2021). These four areas constitute the ‘baskets’ of the Compass and 
they are interlinked. Further definition of the EU’s tasks in crisis management cannot 
be seen in isolation from the other three areas. A higher military level of ambition for 
the EU will have consequences for capability development. Another example of this 
interlinkage is resilience: countering hybrid threats (cyber-attacks, disinformation 
campaigns and other ways of interfering in and undermining Western societies) is a 
matter in which the EU and NATO must act together as partners. 
The process of developing the Compass consists of three phases. The first phase 
was concluded at the end of 2020 with the presentation of the first ever ‘threat 
analyzis’ by the EU, based on the input of the civil and military intelligence services 
of the Member States (Towards a Strategic Compass, 2021). This threat analysis is 
classified, but one may assume that it depicts a wide array of security challenges, 
both military and non-military, stemming from regional contexts (Russia, the 
Middle East, Africa) or from further afield (China in particular). In the second 
phase, encompassing the first semester of 2021 (plus a bit of extra time), a ‘strategic 
dialogue’ (Ibid.) took place with the purpose of exploring the ground for the content 
of the Strategic Compass itself. This dialogue involved not only the EU bodies but 
also think tanks, academia and others convening a huge number of webinars and 
other events. In the debates the first differences of opinion between the Member 
States could be noted. Opposite a large group of more ambitious Member States 
in Western and Southern Europe, several Eastern European countries argued for a 
cautious approach that should mainly focus on optimizing the EU’s current level of 
ambition in crisis management, instead of expanding the Union’s role in security and 
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defence. Some Eastern European capitals fear that the latter could be detrimental to 
NATO and the American security commitments to Europe. 
The third phase has begun (Ibid.) and will lead to the presentation of the first draft 
of the Strategic Compass, written by the European External Action Service (EEAS), 
to the Foreign Affairs Council, including Ministers of Defence, in November 
2021 during the Slovenian EU Presidency. The coming months are crucial in the 
development of the Compass, but the same applies to the period after the November 
ministerial meetings when the Member States will provide their reactions to the draft. 
This phase will be concluded by the adoption of the final version of the Strategic 
Compass in March 2022 at the European Council during the French EU Presidency. 
 2  WHAT SHOULD THE EU BE ABLE TO DO?
The differences of opinion between the EU Member States will have to be bridged. 
There is no other option. Another element to take into account is realism. The EU 
has a track record of bold declarations and strong verbal statements on international 
crises without delivering action or results. One of the reasons for this is that political-
diplomatic initiatives cannot be backed up fully by military force, as the available 
means are too limited and too scarce. The European Security and Defence Policy – 
now the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) – was launched in 1999, not 
only to make the EU an actor with civilian and military means in crisis management, 
but also to end European shortfalls and improve the military capabilities of the 
Member States. More than two decades later and despite the activities of the 
European Defence Agency (EDA), the conclusion is that results are limited and that 
many of the shortfalls still exist, in particular in the areas of intelligence and strategic 
reconnaissance (ISR) and precision munitions. In addition, capabilities in the cyber 
realm and in space have become critical – for both civilian and military purposes 
(Zandee, 2019). In short, the demand (requirements) has increased but the supply 
side (available military means) has improved at too slow a pace and not across all 
domains at the same time. The limited capabilities of the EU Member States cannot 
be denied. Therefore, the Strategic Compass’ ambition must be squared with realism; 
one way to do this is to make a distinction between the short and the long term 
(Zandee, Stoetman, Deen, 2021)1.
 2.1  Short term
In the short term, the EU must focus on closing the gap between rhetoric and 
action based on the broad range of crisis management operations defined in the 
Implementation Plan for Security and Defence from 2016, which followed after the 
EU Global Strategy was published. The tasks related to CSDP crisis management are 
1 The EU’s Strategic Compass for Security and Defence – Squaring Ambition with Realism, Clingendael Report, 
May 2021. The following sections are based on this report.
Dick Zandee
 47 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
defined in Article 43 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU)2. They encompass all 
types of operations, from the low end to the high end of the spectrum. The proposal by 
a large number of EU Member States for an initial-entry capability of around 5,000 
military with all necessary enablers could be one of the force packages that need to be 
developed. As NATO will be primarily concerned about the military threat from ‘the 
East’, the EU, with its wider toolbox of civilian and military means, is more suited 
for crisis management operations in ‘the South’ (the integrated approach). In the 
short term, taking into account the restrictions on available forces, the geographical 
priority area for the EU would be the southern neighbourhood and the Indian Ocean3.
Furthermore, the EU could strengthen resilience for ensuring stable access to the 
‘global commons’, which may include the protection and defence of sea lines of 
communication, by extending the ‘maritime presences concept’, for example. This 
concept is already applied in the Gulf of Guinea in response to the increasing risks 
of piracy (The EU launches its Coordinated Maritime Presences concept in the Gulf 
of Guinea, 2021)4. Military support to internal security actors is another sector that 
needs to be explored. If required, the military can provide important capabilities 
under the leadership of civil security and safety actors in civil protection and disaster 
response, cyber security, countering terrorism and other areas. This brings Article 
42.7 (the mutual defence clause) of the TEU and Article 222 (the solidarity clause) 
of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) into the debate. 
What scenarios and which situations could trigger the use of these articles? What 
role could the EU have if the Member States were to invoke Article 42.7, which has 
happened once – at the request of France after the terrorist attacks on the Bataclan 
theatre in 2015 – but without any follow-up in terms of developing concepts and 
policies for future application? 
 2.2  Long term
The military level of ambition should be considerably raised in the long term, that is 
by 2030 and beyond5. In essence, the EU should be able to conduct all sorts of crisis 
management operations across the full spectrum and in all domains (air, sea, land, 
2 Article 43 of the TEU outlines the following CSDP tasks: »joint disarmament operations, humanitarian and 
rescue tasks, military advice and assistance tasks, conflict prevention and peacekeeping tasks, tasks of combat 
forces in crisis management, including peace-making and post-conflict stabilization. All these tasks may 
contribute to the fight against terrorism, including by supporting third countries in combating terrorism in their 
territories.« 
3 Author‘s opinion.
4 The maritime presences concept deviates from an EU military operation as it is based on coordination between 
the assets (ships, aircraft) of the Member States in the deployment area without a full command and control 
chain connecting the political and military-strategic level in Brussels with the forces in theatre. As it is not a 
formal EU CSDP operation, it even allows for Danish participation as it is not contradictory to Denmark’s opt-
out on the military aspects of CSDP. Denmark will contribute a naval vessel to the Maritime Presences Concept 
in the Gulf of Guinea in the second half of 2021.
5 The Strategic Compass looks ahead 5-10 years, but for capability development this time frame is too short. 
Particularly in capability areas with investment in new technologies, development and production cycles often 
take more than ten years. 
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cyber, space) autonomously in support of its own role as a global actor. This should 
imply the following:
Air domain: the ability to conduct all air operations up to the highest level of the 
spectrum including the full package of air tasks (air-to-air refuelling, reconnaissance, 
suppression of air defence, interdiction, close air support, etc.).
Land domain: the ability to conduct military crisis operations up to corps level or 
comparable levels (task forces), from the low end of the spectrum to the highest level 
of interventions with all necessary capabilities (combat power, long-range artillery, 
engineering, drone defence, etc.).
Sea domain: the ability to conduct naval operations across the full spectrum up to the 
level of a carrier-centred strike force or comparable naval task forces.
Cyber domain: the ability to protect and defend EU forces and military infrastructure 
against cyber-attacks and to conduct offensive cyber operations against identified 
opponents; military cyber commands and cyber assets should also be available to 
assist EU-coordinated cybersecurity activities (including under Article 42.7 TEU).
Space domain: the full use of the Galileo global positioning system and the Copernicus 
observation capacities in support of military operations; the availability of an EU 
capacity in space for secure governmental satellite communications (Gov/SatCom). 
This EU level of ambition is not meant to create competition with NATO. On the 
contrary, if realized in the long term, the European capabilities would also result in 
much better burden-sharing between the US and the European Allies, most of whom 
(21 in total) are also members of the EU. For crisis management operations, the EU 
should extend the geographical scope worldwide, in particular to protect and defend 
its interests in the global commons (such as sea lanes of communication).
 3  WHAT IS NEEDED TO GET THERE?
For a long time, the response to the question of what the EU needs most in order to 
be an effective actor in security and defence consisted of three words: capabilities, 
capabilities, capabilities. There is no doubt that the EU is facing a major problem 
which could already be partly solved if all Member States were to make their full 
military capabilities available to the EU; currently several Member States make 
only a part of their military forces available. But even if the EU could call on all 
the military capabilities of the Member States, serious shortfalls remain. However, 
capability development is not the only area of concern. The EU must improve its 
efforts by taking the following eight actions:
 – Speed up decision-making In the EU, decision-making is very slow and not 
suited to quick action in crisis circumstances. Within the boundaries of the existing 
Dick Zandee
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Treaty – which does not allow the application of qualified majority voting for 
decisions on CSDP operations and missions – two tools could be used. Constructive 
abstentionism (not agreeing, but not blocking a decision either) could provide a 
way out for Member States that object to EU action but can accept that a decision 
is nevertheless taken. Furthermore, Article 44 TEU offers the option of entrusting 
the implementation of an EU operation to a smaller group of Member States. 
The potential of these two options should be explored as a means to speed up 
decision-making. It should be noted that Member States always have the option 
of operating as a ‘coalition of the willing’ in the event that the EU (or NATO for 
that matter) is unable to act. In fact, almost all interventions high in the spectrum 
have been coalitions of the willing under a lead nation. Several operations in the 
Sahel, under French leadership, may serve as examples. It is important to keep the 
option of such coalitions available in order to have maximum flexibility in crisis 
circumstances. 
 – Better preparedness The EU could reduce the time needed for preparing 
operations by introducing contingency planning, advance planning and exercises. 
Various types of operations could be elaborated in Strategic Operational Cases. As 
far as possible, the EU should make use of contingency plans already developed by 
NATO. They should be adapted to changing circumstances and take the integrated 
EU approach into consideration. Live exercises must be organized for all kinds 
of operations to train in multinational formations and to solve problems that may 
come to the fore during those exercises, in order to prevent delays that could occur 
during real operations.
 – Enlarge the MPCC The EU’s command and control system at the military-
strategic level must be stepped up from the current small-scale Military Planning 
and Conduct Capability (MPCC) to an enlarged version capable of planning and 
conducting all EU military operations. In the long term an EU Civil-Military 
Headquarters is required, with two co-located but separate civilian and military 
command and control components. There is an urgent need to install secure 
communications between all relevant EU actors in Brussels and with the force 
level command elements in theatre.
 – Streamline capability development No new instruments need to be created 
for capability development, but the existing tools must be streamlined and used 
to their full extent by the Member States. The Coordinated Annual Review on 
Defence (CARD) could be optimized as the indicator of the results of capability 
improvement and driving collaborative project selection by the Member States. 
The commitments of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) could be 
raised and peer pressure should be increased on Member States not fulfilling 
their commitments. The effectiveness of the European Defence Fund6 could be 
enhanced by creating an EU Government-to-Industries Forum in order to bring 
demand and industrial supply together in multinational cooperation formats as 
early as possible. 
6 The European Defence Fund (EDF) provides financial support to consortia involving at least three EU Member 
States and three entities in different EU Member States for technology research and the development of military 
capacities. 
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 – Integration into national defence planning The EU instruments must be brought 
into national defence planning processes to end the habit in many Member States 
of considering collaborative projects as ‘something additional’. It must be turned 
around: collaborative solutions first, national projects second, and they should 
only be the preferred option when a multinational programme is absent while 
capability is an absolute requirement. ‘Europe Days’ could be organized regularly 
to increase awareness of EU defence cooperation within Ministries of Defence.
 – Connect civilian and military capability development Civil and military 
capability development should be aligned to the maximum extent, particularly 
in the space and cyber sectors, but also generally with regard to emerging and 
disruptive technologies with dual-use applications. European capabilities 
originally developed for civilian users – such as the EU’s global positioning 
satellite system, Galileo, and the Copernicus earth observation programme – can 
be used by the military as well. The next step in the European Commission’s 
Action Plan to seek synergies between the civil, defence and space sectors is the 
development of a Technology Roadmap, to be ready in October 2021. It should 
help to steer investment in all three sectors in a coordinated way.
 – Step up defence industrial cooperation Increasing collaborative programmes by 
Member States must go hand in hand with more cross-border defence industrial 
cooperation. Major European companies have embarked on such cooperation, but 
further steps must be taken in order to integrate and specialize defence industries 
and create a true European Defence Technological and Industrial Base. Special 
attention must be given to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the defence 
sector which are facing the most serious problems in joining procurement 
programmes which are carried out by the ‘integrators’ (major companies) in the 
larger EU Member States.
 – European specialized capability groups A neglected but important area that 
should be looked at is the already ongoing process of drawing up the national 
capability profiles of the Member States. Germany and the Eastern European 
countries have ongoing programmes to increase the heavy land forces that are 
most suited to collective defence. Countries with overseas commitments or whose 
security interests are primarily determined by the instability and conflicts in areas 
to the South put more emphasis on naval capabilities and on more mobile, lighter 
forces. These national capability profiles could be the basis for discussing certain 
forms of specialization coordinated by groups of European countries.
Ultimately, better decision-making processes, operational planning, capability 
development tools and other ways of improving European defence cooperation are 
dependent on political will at the highest level. The European Council should be 
regularly involved in assessing results based on milestones and targets – agreed by 
EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence – in order to ensure sustained political 
pressure and financial investment by the EU and at the national level, which will be 
a key precondition for success.
Dick Zandee
 51 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
  The way ahead
The Strategic Compass exercise is entering its final and crucial phase. The European 
External Action Service has the important task of providing a draft text to the Foreign 
Affairs Council with the participation of Defence Ministers on 15-16 November this 
year. It is expected that the EEAS will provide an ambitious proposal in line with 
various Council Conclusions. Following the release of the draft text, the last and 
most difficult steps will have to be taken with the aim of reaching consensus among 
all EU Member States by March 2022. Most likely, the European countries favouring 
a less ambitious Strategic Compass will try to water down the draft text during this 
period. In any case, this will be a challenging process, of course for the EEAS as the 
penholder, but also for the Slovenian and French EU Presidencies. 
The solution to bridge the gap between ‘the East’ and ‘the rest’ in the EU may lie 
in the linkage with NATO. In a parallel process (to be concluded later in 2022) 
the Alliance is developing a new Strategic Concept, taking into consideration the 
changed security environment of the 2020s and beyond. With a pro-EU Biden 
Administration in Washington, there is now a window of opportunity to strike a 
new transatlantic bargain. This bargain can no longer be solely concluded within the 
Alliance. It must involve the EU as a strategic partner, because the EU will continue 
to enhance its role in security and defence in order to take more responsibility for 
European security. Furthermore, the broader agenda of the EU – from trade to 
finances and from development aid to security and defence – provides added value 
to the narrower but important responsibilities of NATO as an organization with a 
political-military focus on collective defence. 
The EU should now rise to the occasion. If its ambition level in security and defence 
is not raised considerably, the EU will never become a global actor. Continuing 
business as usual is not an option. The EU must step up its efforts: it is about breaking 
through or simply muddling through, and with regard to a better burden-sharing with 
the US. At the start of the European Security and Defence Policy process, around 
the turn of the century, its purpose was mainly defined as ‘to act autonomously, 
also with military means if needed, and in cases where NATO would not undertake 
action’. More than 20 years later, this must be extended – due to the changed 
security environment and the US focus on the Indo-Pacific – to ‘the ability to act 
autonomously to protect and defend European interests, and to develop the required 
military capabilities, while strengthening NATO at the same time’. It is essential 
that the Strategic Compass states very clearly not only what the EU should be able 
to do and what is needed to realize that level of ambition, but also that the military 
capabilities required for this purpose will automatically lead to better burden-sharing 
in NATO.
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1. European Union External Action Service. https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/iraq/91970/
eu-launches-its-coordinated-maritime-presences-concept-gulf-guinea_ar, 10. 8. 2021.
2. Cologne European Council 3-4 June 1999 – Conclusions of the Presidency, Annex III 
– Declaration of the European Council on Strengthening the Common European Policy 
on Security and Defence, Paragraph 1. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/summits/kol2_
en.htm#an3, 5. 8. 2021.
3. Council Conclusions on Security and Defence, Council of the European Union, 8396/21, 
Brussels, 10 May 2021, Paragraph 2, https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-
8396-2021-INIT/en/pdf, 31. 7. 2021.
4. Joint Declaration on European Defence – Joint Declaration issued at the British-French 
Summit (Saint-Malo, 4 December 1998), Paragraph 2, https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/
franco_british_st_malo_declaration_4_december_1998-en-f3cd16fb-fc37-4d52-936f-
c8e9bc80f24f.html, 5. 8. 2021.
5. Towards a Strategic Compass, 2021. European Union External Action Service. https://
eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/towards_a_strategic_compass.pdf, 10. 8. 2021.
6. Zandee, D., 2019. Quo vadis EDA? European Defence Matters, Issue #7.
7. Zandee, D.; Stoetman, A.; Deen, B. 2021. The EU’s Strategic Compass for security and 
defence – squaring ambition with realism, Clingendael Report, May 2021. 
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Dick Zandee