Description
Many EU members have upended their defence perceptions, policies and calculations, due to a set of pan-European critical challenges for security, including the war in Ukraine and the evolving US retrenchment from European security affairs. The UK, alongside several EU countries was at the forefront of the international response to the Russian invasion. This not only provided an opportunity for a renewed coordinated response to the war among the UK, the EU and other NATO members, but also created space for re-engagement in the UK-EU relationship, signaling a more substantive engagement with the question of Europe’s defence capabilities. Defining the European Defence Ecosystem as the policy environment in which European and international security and defence actors operate, this paper argues that despite the UK-EU rapprochement following the drift of Brexit, the lack of formal defence engagement between the two sides is a weak link in the Ecosystem. In this context, how far do the UK and EU approaches to European defence align? The paper takes stock of the UK’s and EU’s approaches to the European defence ecosystem, highlighting priority and agenda alignment as well as actions to mitigate the risks within the ecosystem. In so doing, the paper focuses on areas where the UK and EU work together, which in turn highlights where gaps in the European Defence Ecosystem are located, offering a systems view approach of the organic development of their defence relationship.
