THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
In the Spotlight
+++ European Union +++
Another look at the European Union’s role regarding the war in Ukraine
photo: ©natatravel 2020, stock.adobe.com
Has the time for EU power come?
by Dr Delphine Deschaux-Dutard, Associate Professor, University Grenoble Alpes, CESICE, Grenoble, and Bastien Nivet, Senior Lecturer, EMLV, Paris La Défense
T
he military invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation has forced Europeans to take a new step in asserting a more ambitious international posture, which should anchor the notion of European strategic autonomy in the medium term. The Ukrainian war raises the question of the European Union’s power, which requires a look back at the dialectical relationship between the Union and power since the beginning of the European integration process, and to evaluate how the current situation renews this dialectic.
The European peace project in jeopardy European leaders have for many decades tended to define European integration as an influence-without-power, peace project. However, a peace project can be confronted with an international environment that is not peaceful, as the war in Ukraine currently shows. Thus the European Union (EU) has gradually developed a strategic discourse over the last two decades, aiming to position itself on the international security scene and tackling hybrid threats: a European Security Strategy in 2003; a Cyber Security Strategy in 2013 followed by a cyber toolbox and the possibility of imposing sanctions in the event of cyber-attacks (2018-2019); a Comprehensive EU Security Strategy in June 2016, and a Strategic Compass in March 2022. This evolution has been backed up at the opera-
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tional level by the development of peace operations (in sub-Saharan Africa and the Balkans in particular), naval operations to combat piracy, etc. These developments started to move the EU towards something other than civil and normative power.
What power attributes for the Union? The EU can draw upon important resources such as a large and prosperous internal market, strong trade and attractiveness, which help to set regulatory standards in these areas. For some, this is a key lever of EU power. However, it is important to look further and assess how far the EU has come in its ability to impose its views not only through civil and normative means, but also through military means in case of conflict. What is at stake today is the EU’s ability to make optimal use of its traditional tools of power, while at the same time adding to them a posture and tools that have eluded it until now. If the EU wants to build on its undisputed soft power and combine it with hard power to achieve a form of smart power, it has several assets to develop. Military capabilities are an important first step in moving from vision to action. On paper, the EU has developed military capabilities over the last two decades. The Strategic Compass approved by the European Council in March 2022 even foresees a rapid reaction capability of 5,000 troops by 2025, which could replace the European Battlegroups never deployed. Yet there is still a significant gap between capabilities and action. However, the EU has already deployed nearly ten military operations on different continents over the past two decades, which add to the civil missions also undertaken within the CFSP and CSDP framework.
