The first ever overview of the European defence landscape, the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD) report, identifies significant avenues for European defence cooperation with 55 new opportunities for countries to develop defence capabilities together.
It recommends six next generation high impact capabilities as focus areas for joint European development efforts. The review also finds that the European defence landscape is characterised by high levels of fragmentation and low investment in cooperation.
The European Defence Agency (EDA) presented EDA Ministers of Defence today with the first CARD report developed in close coordination with the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the EU Military Staff (EUMS) over the past 12 months.
Head of the Agency, High Representative/Vice-President, Josep Borrell:
“For the first time, we have a unique overview of all 26 EDA Member States’ national defence planning and capability development efforts. This is the result of an in-depth dialogue with national defence planners at EU level. It provides Member States with areas in which there is great potential for European defence cooperation, providing Member States forces with modern equipment and improving their interoperability, including in CSDP missions and operations”.
Preparing the future together
Based on Member States’ own planning and dialogues with national defence planners, the report identifies clear opportunities for multinational cooperation and has identified 55 opportunities across all military domains: Land (17); Air (14); Maritime (12); Cyberspace (3); Space (4) and Joint and Enabler (5). The report concludes many have the potential to deliver a significant impact on the European capability landscape, provide operational benefits and support EU’s strategic autonomy. It also recommends an additional 56 related collaborative opportunities for Research & Technology (R&T).
European Denfese landscape
The report finds that the European defence landscape is characterised by fragmentation, incoherence, and by defence cooperation spending falling well below agreed collective benchmarks. This includes military capability development, R&T efforts, defence industry support and operational aspects. It concludes that continuous efforts will be needed over a long period in defence spending, planning and cooperation to overcome costly fragmentation and benefit from synergies and enhanced military interoperability. Additionally, the CARD analysis finds that:
Taking cooperation forward
CARD may result in new cooperation projects launched by Member States in various formats – under PESCO, within EDA or in other bilateral or multinational frameworks – should they choose to take them forward. The full report and its findings have been circulated among Member States.
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