Description
Defence-industrial cooperation has emerged as a top priority for the EU. In the last few years, EU member states and institutions have launched several initiatives with the objective of reducing the fragmentation of the defence market and promoting the joint development of military equipment. However, European countries remain critically divided when it comes to developing new and ambitious cutting-edge technological arms programmes. At the moment, two important and competing initiatives are unfolding in Europe. On the one hand, France, Germany and Spain have agreed to develop a sixth-generation European fighter jet – the Future Combat Air System. On the other hand, the UK has launched a similar project - the Tempest - with Italy and Sweden having joined this programme. Why, despite the new EU defence initiatives explicitly aim to promote joint development of defence arms programmes, are European states developing two different and competing fighter jets?
To answer this empirical puzzle, the article distinguishes between two different modes of European defence-industrial cooperation with different distributional implications. The first mode of cooperation is related to the creation of armaments institutions and organizations and entails low distributional implications for EU member states and industries, given that they are less concerned about intra-European competition. The situation is different when it comes to develop collaborative armaments programmes. In this second mode of cooperation, there are higher distributional implications, linked to three main factors: security of supply, influence, and intra-industrial rivalries. This explains why European countries often manage to agree on the first mode of cooperation, but they struggle to overcome distributional implications when it comes to develop collaborative arms programmes.
