Research Papers

As the financial crisis hits already overstretched European defence budgets, supporters of CSDP have looked increasingly to maximise the potential of pooling and sharing military capabilities through the development of the Ghent framework. This revisiting of the difficult area of material capabilities and their use, offers a useful starting point to interrogate social constructivist claims about the impact of Brusselsisation on national policy. This paper critically examines existing examples of pooling and sharing and questions whether, without a level of agreement on a CSDP strategy on military intervention and defence (which as Libya showed does not currently exist), such initiatives are likely to add much to the EU’s actual, as opposed to paper, military capabilities. Might, as some readings of the 2010 Franco-British agreements on cooperation suggest, pooling and sharing actually lead to more coalitions of the willing rather than the development of a CSDP? As use of NATO joint assets or the deployment of the Franco-German brigade and Eurocorps have shown, unless participating states share a common (and cross-party) understanding of how and when such capabilities would be used, then problems can ensue. Stark differences remain between the member states on issues as diverse as parliamentary consent for military action, configuration of the armed forces and economic and technological commitments to their national DTIB. Does this suggest that despite the evidence showing increasing social interaction and assimilation among officials working on CSDP, such interactions are less key to whether a common strategic culture develops than is often asserted in the academic literature?