PESCO: A Force for Positive Integration in EU Defence

Abstract

Differentiation, or what some have called the ‘negative starting point’ of integration, has always been the norm in EU defence policy. Driven by both endogenous and exogenous (f)actors, political leaders in the European Council are nevertheless mindful of the need for Member States to cooperate in more structured ways to better protect their citizens against security threats. For this reason, a package of harmonizing measures has been developed with remarkable speed since 2016. Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) is the most prominent innovation in this field. Given the high levels of politicization in defence it is perhaps surprising that PESCO has produced the most inclusive expression of enhanced cooperation, even if it is the most flexible of the differentiated integration mechanisms provided by the Treaties. This is largely the result of a German push for inclusivity, which prevailed over a French desire for a higher level of ambition. Monitored by the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the European Defence Agency (EDA) and increasingly driven by the Commission’s Directorate General for Defence Industry and Space (DG DEFIS), which manages the European Defence Fund (EDF), PESCO is a force that generates ‘positive integration’ by de-fragmenting the defence market in the European Union. This article builds on empirical research that maps the varied clusters of Member States lining up behind different types of defence capability development projects. It observes a process of coagulation across the microcosm of PESCO, coupled with formal expressions of differentiated integration, both vertically and horizontally, and offers explanations for these trends. European Union, differentiated integration, defence, PESCO

Patterns of Cooperation in the European Defence Sector – A Network-Approach-Based Investigation of EU Projects

“…In order to empirically investigate the patterns and differences of the defence cooperation partnerships and explore regional clusters and distinctive hubs of defence collaborations, we assembled a complex database from available online information. Several articles and studies (Blockmans-Crosson 2019, Varga 2019, Nádudvari-Etl-Bereczky 2020, Molnár-Szabolcs 2020 have already mapped the overall structure and some deeper characteristics of the cooperation, which results can be utilized for further investigation . In this respect, it might be worth investigating the structure as a directed asymmetric network in order to find out whether some kind of difference in the evolving structure can be measured.…”

“…However, the evolution and development of integration might lead to a higher level of cooperation, a convergence of certain countries or regions, and clusters of Member States characterized with less deepened partnership relations or smaller sub-regions or subgroups with specific areas of cooperation. That is, a differentiated integration pattern might evolve (Brunazzo 2022) with a segmented structure of partnership, which could also be explored in specific areas, including defence initiations (see Blockmans-Crosson 2019).…”

Spot the Difference: Differentiated Co‐operation and Differentiated Integration in the European Union

“…In the remainder of this article, we offer a preliminary demonstration of how the distinction between DC and DI, thus conceived and operationalized, can shed new light on the phenomenon of differentiation. We focus in particular on CSDP and AFSJ, two policy areas which feature prominently in the differentiation literature (see, for instance, Adler‐Nissen, 2009; Biscop, 2018; Blockmans, 2018; Blockmans & Crosson, 2021; Howorth, 2019; Migliorati, 2021; Peers, 2018). The reason for us to choose these two policy fields to illustrate our distinction – although the latter could obviously be applied elsewhere as well – is twofold.…”

“…PESCO represents the flexibility mechanism within CSDP about which there may be most room for debate as to whether it represents a case of DI or DC. This initiative has been sometimes presented as a tool for ‘integration’ in the defence realm (Blockmans & Crosson, 2021; Jopp & Schubert, 2019) and some aspects of its governance could seem to point indeed in such a direction. Member States participating to PESCO are expected, first of all, to comply with 20 commitments which are legally binding and not insignificant, covering for instance defence investment targets or the alignment of participating Member States' defence apparatus.…”

Mechanical shock test simulation analysis of butterfly valves developed for the naval defense industry and evaluation of real test and production data

“…PLM NX, SolidWorks, Autodesk Maya, AutoCAD, CATIA are some of these programs. In this way, they can make changes on their designs much more quickly and print this electronic information on paper whenever they want 28 . Designers can assemble the parts they have completed and thus easily check whether the design they have made will work properly as a whole.…”