European Defense and Security after Brexit

(photo: the German Leopard 2A6 battle tank)

– by Paolo Balmas –

In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, from a defense and security perspective the main reaction of the major European Union member states, Germany, France, and Italy, has been to stress the need to increase cooperation on intelligence sharing and defense, which means to move towards the integration of their national armed forces.

On August 22, the three leaders, Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande, and Matteo Renzi, met on the Italian aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi and then flew to the island of Ventotene. These are two very symbolic locations, as the battleship is coordinating the migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea, and Ventotene is the former prison island where Altiero Spinelli wrote his manifesto on the United States of Europe in 1941 based on a federalist view of the political organization of the Continent.

The European leaders perceive Brexit as the opportunity for a new era for European defense. The United Kingdom has always vetoed plans for a common EU army, using the authority coming with its role in the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). As former Italian Chief of Staff Gen. Vincenzo Camporini put it in an interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica, the UK didn’t allow any steps to be taken towards integration.

Nevertheless, the UK has de facto been one of the major promoters, with France, of a tangible attempt to build integrated armed forces capable of being deployed through different frameworks, whether the European External Action Service (EEAS), NATO, or UN peacekeeping missions. The key phases in this attempt were the Lancaster House Treaties signed in 2010 by then-President of France Nicolas Sarkozy and then-UK Prime Minister David Cameron, the confirmation of the Treaties in November 2015, and the recent UK-France Summit held on March 3, 2016.

In the “Security and Defence” paper annexed to the documents of the UK-France Summit, we can read as follows:

“[…] France and the United Kingdom are determined to build a common architecture for information and communication systems, increase their intelligence exchanges, and more effectively coordinate the national strategic planning mechanisms. The multi-annual training programme (2017-2022) will take into account this requirement and examine the conditions for a possible opening up to other allies.”

The UK and France were also the major promoters of an integrated European defense industry, although the merger of BAE Systems and Eads, which includes the giant Airbus firm, wasn’t finalized. This was an attempt that if it had succeeded, may have made Brexit almost impossible.

Renzi has proposed European tax breaks to finance a joint procurement and defense development program. While Italy would like to see a more flexible European tax system and France focuses on a more integrated economy within the Eurozone, Germany is ready to merge its army with that of the Netherlands and try to fill the vacuum that the UK will leave behind. After Brexit, Germany has the opportunity to become not only the key financial center, but also the new point of reference for security and defense in the EU. But not alone. Bold new cooperation between France and Germany is perceived as the only possible chance to substitute the joint efforts of the UK and France.

Notwithstanding the opportunities presented by Brexit, the deeper problems EU members have to face on security and defense issues remain exactly the same. At a time when the EU is facing an unprecedented and simultaneous set of threats and challenges – terror attacks, clandestine terror networks within the Union, Brexit, migration crisis, the standoff with the Russian Federation and the boomerang of economic sanctions, the strengthening of populist political parties and their centrifugal narratives, the potential crisis of some major banks, and the renewed fear of Greece leaving the Eurozone, known as Grexit – member states are constantly dealing with the extraordinary complexity of their security and defense environment. EU members have to interface with national defense, EEAS, NATO and UN Peacekeeping operations, which considered together represent a huge economic burden.

The EU Global Strategy, signed by the High Representative Federica Mogherini in June 2016, aims for greater involvement in UN missions. This is accessory to the European effort to request a reform of the international institutions, i.e. the UN and the IMF.

The EU priorities are, in addition to the economic slowdown, the lack of a common strategic view and limited intelligence exchange, as revealed by the crisis in Libya, and also the migrant crisis. Brexit has not changed the situation. As the member states’ disagreement on many issues remains and the UK leaves the Union, NATO, despite its alleged identity crisis, still remains the fundamental defense and security actor in Europe.