MNI INTERVIEW: US Election Key To EU Defence Boost Plans

MNI (BRUSSELS) - Boosting EU defence industry production to the level needed to address the bloc’s security challenges would require around EUR100 billion a year, but the outcome of the race for the White House will be key to whether Europe finds the money, Nick Witney, former head of the European Defence Agency, told MNI.

As yet it is unclear if funds on that scale can or will be provided, although the planned appointment of an EU defence commissioner this autumn will provide more “clout and drive” for efforts to bolster the industry. The European Defence Fund currently spends only a billion euros on projects in member states, which is “nice but marginal” relative to the total size of the European defence market, Witney points out, 

He says he is "extremely doubtful" that Mario Draghi's impending report on EU competitiveness, even if it focusses on the defence area, will have much impact. Instead, Witney, who was involved in the UK’s 1998 Strategic Defence Review and is currently a senior policy fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations, sees strong resistance from national finance ministries already looming.

“We may be coming to the point quite soon where national finance ministries join the debate and say, we have increased our national defence budgets substantially across Europe and now you are saying you want this further massive source of finance for defence. They may well argue against that,” he said.

CRUNCH US VOTE

The outcome of November's US presidential election will be pivotal to which way the EU debate goes on this topic and whether EU leaders are prepared to countenance substantial new common funding for defence.

“We are not going to see much happening on this until we see who is in the White House and, if it is President Harris, everyone will heave a sigh of relief and things can carry on as they have in the last few years and the desperate need to find more central finance will be dodged a bit and the next seven years will have a bit more EDF funding,” Witney said. “If, on the other hand, it’s President Trump then (expect) widespread panic all round and one could imagine circumstances in which that scheme is brought in.”

GLOBAL BRITAIN FOCUS 

Collaboration between the EU and UK defence sectors in order to inject the needed ballast into the European industry also faces obstacles, he says.

“Seen from London one looks at the way industrial and technological collaboration is currently structured in Europe, basically through the EDF (European Defence Fund) and the door is pretty firmly shut against third-country involvement, Witney explained. "It’s been designed like that to keep the Americans out and the collateral damage is it keeps the UK out -- that is a problem.” 

Witney says that the UK defence industry itself needs to be more interested in securing better access to European markets but instead it is finding the ‘Global Britain’ approach of past governments a more enticing prospect. “I don’t get the sense that this government is under particular pressure to improve its access to European projects and European defence markets,” he said.  

According to Witney, the biggest UK firms, BAE Systems and Rolls Royce, are more focused on big new commercial opportunities in the wider world, such as the submarine collaboration with Australia and the US and the Tempest fighter project with Italy and Japan.  

“One would have thought they would have an interest in better integrating what they do in Europe and what they do in the UK,” he said, adding that the process of better integrating UK and EU defence collaboration efforts is more likely to be driven by European firms like Thales, Leonardo and Airbus, all of which do substantial business in the UK.