The European Commission’s new role in EU security and defence cooperation: the case of the European Defence Fund

Abstract

European Defence is in a new and formative phase in which the European Union’s long list of defence acronyms has steadily grown. One of the most noticeable new policy initiatives is the European Commission’s European Defence Fund (EDF). This article consequently investigates and outlines the establishment of the European Defence Fund and the European Commission’s new role within the field of security and defence through the lens of revised neofunctionalism. This article thus asks how and through what steps did the EDF come about; and secondly how can neofunctionalism explain the dynamics involved in the establishment of the European Defence Fund. The analysis uses a process-tracing method and draws on interviews with relevant policymakers and officials in Brussels as well as official EU documents. The conclusions argue that the ever-increasing involvement of the European Commission in a policy field close to national sovereignty is starting to blur the traditional dichotomy between intergovernmental and supranational decision-making. In this way, this study contributes to the growing literature on the weakening of intergovernmentalism within the EU security and defence policy field.