The critical weaknesses in Starmer's EU defence pact

Yahoo

17-05-2025

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to announce a defence pact with the EU on Monday that many hope will land the UK arms industry a slice of Europe's spending boom.
However, amid the usual bureaucracy and infighting in Brussels, there are growing doubts over whether this military bonanza will ever materialise.
Experts warn that European governments' desires to boost their own domestic industries, placate voters and staunch their bleeding budgets could slow or even thwart efforts to strengthen the bloc's defence.
This means that even if Sir Keir secures a ticket to ride the European defence gravy train, it may never leave the station.
'There are big question marks over whether Europe has the means and commitment to undertake the extra spending and sustained co-operation that this [defence expansion] would require,' said Vicky Redwood, Capital Economics's senior adviser, in a recent report.
Up until now, the signs have appeared promising.
European leaders have long stressed a need to bolster their defences to guard against the threat from an expansionist Russia, with military commitments growing ever more pronounced since Donald Trump took office in America.
There have been several positive developments this month alone.
Last week, Friedrich Merz, the new chancellor of Germany, said his successful unpicking of his country's fiscal lock would allow him to build 'the strongest conventional army in Europe', which will mean spending billions of euros more per year.
In Turkey, that same day, Nato foreign ministers hatched a deal on reaching Trump's new stretch target of spending a 5pc of GDP on defence.
Elsewhere, bureaucrats in Brussels have also been negotiating how to include non-EU countries like Britain in a new €150bn (£127bn) fund for defence projects.
The UK's Security and Defence Partnership with the EU, which the two sides hope to agree on Monday, would allow British businesses to participate in projects bankrolled by the scheme, although their involvement would likely be tightly capped.
'There's an opportunity here for UK industry to play on a much bigger pitch,' says Labour's Liam Byrne, who chairs the business and trade committee.
However, even if the European gate is prised open for UK weapons manufacturers, there may be less behind it than the Starmer Government hopes.
'Without question, signature of the pact at the summit is desirable, but in the near future it will not create the single European defence market, including the UK, that some member-states would like to see,' the Centre for European Reform, a think tank, has said ahead of the summit.
The fundamental challenge is that European countries, particularly France, are reluctant to relinquish any of their own defence output or jobs for the greater collective good.
'For Europe to be efficient and effective, governments would have to spend defence money on other people's defence industries,' says Anand Menon, director of the think tank UK in a Changing Europe.
'Will the Poles, for instance, with all their new defence money, be willing to plough that into French industry?'
Redwood is sceptical of the Europeans' commitment to collectivity, as she questions 'whether Europe has the political will for a shake-up of defence policy beyond some extra German-led spending over the next two or three years'.
'After all, self-sufficiency in defence would require a lot of money and, arguably more importantly, a lot of willpower and collective effort,' she says.
Even if they could work together, the EU's 27 countries don't agree on their greater collective strategic interest. Hungary and Slovakia are at best ambivalent on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and their recalcitrance could fetter the EU's ability to power a defence industrial revolution.
'We're talking about a conflict in which two, possibly three, member states seem to be on the wrong side. That's problematic,' Manon says.
'Because those member states aren't onside, then you can't use the EU [to defend against military threats]. And the EU isn't very good at deploying military force anyway. If you can't use the EU, what do you use?
In the past, you'd have said Nato, obviously. But the question now is, can you trust the United States enough to use Nato?'
Even if the Europeans agreed on the ends, there's still the question of whether they have the means.
The Bruegel Institute estimates that the Europeans will need to stump up as much as €250bn a year in extra spending if they are to field the manpower, material and manufacturing capability required to fend off the likes of Russia.
But government budgets are already stretched as the pandemic and the Ukraine-sparked energy crisis left deficit and debt levels unsustainably high.
Every extra euro spent on defence will have to come from a frontline service like health or education, raising awkward questions politically.
Even some governments that oppose Vladimir Putin's invasion, like those of Spain and Italy, might struggle to sell that trade-off to their electorates, Redwood says.
And if Trump does manage to pull off a Ukraine peace deal that puts Putin back in his box, the impetus for a big military revolution could fade.
But Byrne reckons the Europeans will pull together, with Britain tagging along for the ride. 'I think the political will is actually going to trump the bureaucratic inertia that is still there,' he says.
'There are obviously countries like France which have raised concerns and objections. But overwhelmingly, the political consensus, especially in Scandinavia and the Baltics, as well as along Nato's eastern flank, is really clear.
'And they see the UK as an absolutely core supplier of what Nato needs to win wars in the future.'