Author: Michael Dauderstädt

 

This paper compares and evaluates eleven proposals, which suggest policies and institutional arrangements to close the European investment gap. The differences between the proposals analyzed here are notable but the majority of them share a large common ground regarding size, financing, institutional set-up and areas to invest in. Most proposals want to mobilize between 100 and 300 bn€ p.a. of private capital by leveraging funds from either the EU or government budgets or the EIB or new public investment funds. They intend to channel this capital into projects with long-term benefits for Europe, primarily infrastructure and energy.

 

The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) have the pleasure of presenting a new Task Force report:

Years of uncoordinated cuts in defence spending have eroded the EU’s role as a security actor in what is now a multipolar world. This Task Force report aims to provide member states and the EU institutions with the narrative to strengthen defence cooperation in the EU, in the face of numerous emergencies in the EU’s strategic neighbourhood and ever-present security threats.

The report is a record of the deliberations over several months between high-level experts in the field of European security and defence, who conclude that the Treaty of Lisbon demands and permits a great deal more in terms of our common security and defence activities. And that member states could achieve much more value for money than the €190 billion that they spend to keep up 28 national armies, comprising roughly 1.5 million service personnel.

The Task Force report suggests policy actions to further the EU’s strategic, institutional, capabilities, and resources cooperation in the field of defence. Ultimately, in the view of the Task Force experts, further integration should amount to a ‘European Defence Union’ (EDU).