by 
At a time when the multipolarity model is taking hold in global governance, in the EU the idea of a «autonomous military power» is reviewed, something that has been latent on the bloc’s agenda since the mid-1990s.
Although the EU, with its 27 members, is a major player in the global economy and acts as a hegemonic bloc, it cannot act independently of NATO and the US with regard to its defense and security.
Why would the European Union seek to implement a new defense strategy independent of NATO and the US?
Times have changed, gone are the happy times when Javier Solana (the person responsible for the NATO bombings on Yugoslavia) declared in 2003: ««Europe has never been so prosperous, so safe or so free. The violence of the first half of the 20th century has given way to a period of peace and stability unprecedented in European history.
Military program «Strategic compassto”
In June 2020, the EU began studying an operational defense guide called the “Strategic Compass” following the analysis of geopolitical threats to the bloc. The vice president of the European Commission and head of EU foreign policy, Josep Borrell, in the plenary session of the European Commission assured that «Europe is in danger», referring to hybrid attacks such as those launched by Belarus on Poland (completely hypothetical) or the situation in Ukraine and added: «We are in a world in which everything is susceptible to being used as a weapon of aggression and in this scenario it is not enough for the EU to exercise its “soft power” through trade policy. [se refiere a la firma de Tratados de Libre Comercio] and human rights”
And he accelerated preparations for the adoption of the “Strategic Compass”, the proposal for the bloc’s new defense strategy, as part of his objective of “autonomy in defense» and thus address the security of the region and the association with third countries, among others such as Norway and Canada. Borrell reiterated that the Strategic Compass is not an alternative to NATO, but rather a way to share the US military burden.
The document aims to forge in the EU a common position on the geopolitical threats faced by the club that transcend the limits of the traditional war attack and which proposes, as a first step, the creation of an emergency military force before 2025.
The threat analysis carried out by Borrell’s department shows, as detailed by the high representative, what scenario the EU is entering into in the third decade of the 21st century: “Un much more hostile world, in which our economic space and our strategic space are disputed, and in which our political space is increasingly degraded”. What the document ignores is the absence of a social Europe in the political deterioration of the political space, the North-South inequalities of the community countries that blur the economic and social homogeneity of the bloc in a center-periphery relationship through post-pandemic aid and economic rescues charged to the public debt of the beneficiary countries.
The project is strengthened, among other things, by the recent debacle in Afghanistan, where European allies were unable to maintain their presence after the withdrawal of US military and logistical support. ““We cannot continue to look the other way and expect others to do our job,” Borrell emphasizes, in the shadow of the European fiascos in Libya, Syria as a backdrop.
The most striking element of the document, which is planned to be finalized at the EU Leaders’ Summit in March 2022, is the creation of a “rapid deployment force” before 2025 that would have up to 5,000 soldiers, both in air units as land and naval.
The EU is working on alternatives for its military defense in view of divergent factors such as French Prime Minister Macron’s statements: «What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO«, the deteriorated relations with the US that emerged during the presidency of Donald Trump and the new approach of the new US president Biden that shifts the epicenter to the threat from China instead of Russia
Boost military spending
In favor of the project for a European joint force, we must take into account the inclusion in the latest EU budgets in 2021 of the important items allocated directly or indirectly to defense. Starting this year, the EU has a fund of 8 billion euros that will finance joint weapons development projects. Since this same year, the European Peace Support Fund has also been operational, out of the 5.6 billion euros that the EU has to pay for foreign policy operations with military implications in the period 2021-2027.
On the other side of the Atlantic
Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, makes the close NATO-EU relations very clear, declaring in 2019: «The EU and NATO are two sides of the same coin. We cannot force ourselves to choose between transatlantic unity and European unity. We need both. And any attempt to distance Europe from North America will not only weaken NATO, but also divide Europe. The EU is a great instrument to generate peace, stability and prosperity. But the EU cannot replace NATO, especially after Brexit, when 80% of the Alliance’s defense spending will come from non-EU allies.
Stoltenberg then said that they are working together with the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council to ““further strengthen NATO – EU cooperation” and that cooperation between NATO and the EU «reached unprecedented levels in recent years.
The American perspective that we are at the end of a historical period was described by the North American Undersecretary of Defense, Bob Work, during the CNAS Defense Forum conference series, on December 14, 2015.
«…, We are at a moment of crucial importance after the Cold War. I firmly believe that historians will study these last 25 years. I am really referring to the period between May 12, 1989, when President Bush said that “containment” would no longer be the focus on which Defense military planning was built…… And December 2013, when China began its policy of projects in the claimed enclaves of the South Sea, and March 2014, when Russia illegally occupied Crimea and began sending troops in support of Ukrainian separatists.
«The unipolar world is beginning to fade and we are entering a more multipolar world, in which US global leadership is likely to be challenged. Therefore, among the most significant challenges of these 25 years, the one that, from my point of view, will be the most demanding, is the reappearance of competition between great powers.
BATTLEGROUPS
The 1999 Helsinki European Council promoted the development of a rapid action force prototype that the EU debuted in June 2003 with “Artemis”, the first European autonomous military operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
But it was not until January 1, 2007 that the EU had a rapid response operational force, the “EU Battlegroups”, two emergency battalions of about 1,500 soldiers each, of which there is always one active to respond to any crisis or threat. The battalions are multinational and rotate semiannually. Spain will lead the contingent for the second half of 2022. With these battalions, the EU can carry out two rapid response deployments for a minimum of 30 days, extendable up to 120 with reserves and resupplies.
They can be used for the tasks contemplated in art. 43 of the EU Treaty: conflict prevention, initial stabilization phases, humanitarian and rescue interventions, crisis management or peace missions.
To corroborate everything, Úrsula von der Leyen in November 2019 emphasized the need to have a stronger Europe during her executive’s presentation speech before the European Parliament:
«…the world needs our leadership more than ever. Continue interacting with the world as a responsible power«
and added:
«This is the geopolitical Commission that I have in mind and that Europe urgently needs….We can be the shapers of a better global order«
The EU-NATO Joint Declaration of 10 January 2023
Both signed a joint Declaration in Brussels. They strongly condemned from their point of view the self-defense of the Russian Federation in the armed conflict in Ukraine and reiterated their unwavering support for Ukraine.
This Declaration also sets out their shared vision of how the EU and NATO will jointly combat threats to common security, expand and intensify their cooperation in areas such as:
- increasing geostrategic competition,
- resilience and protection of critical infrastructure,
- emerging and disruptive technologies,
- the space field,
- the repercussions of climate change in the field of security,
- the manipulation of information and interference by foreign agents.
The document EU response to “Russian invasion” of Ukraine expresses the position adopted: opinion of the conflict, economic coercive measures applied against the Russian Federation, support for the Zelensky puppet government and the civilian population and the impact of the war on the market: energy crisis, food security
