Study On The Obstacles To The EU Defence Integration

The European integration process has a long history,and the "high politics" issue of defence is one of the important indicators to evaluate the progress of integration.During the Cold War,European countries had already made an attempt to establish the European Security Community.Although it failed in the end,it laid the foundation for the defence integration cooperation afterwards.Since the founding of the EU,the member states have realized the importance to accelerate the process of defence integration,published relevant strategies,policies and mechanisms one after another,thus steadily advanced defence cooperation.In recent years,with the escalation of security tensions in Europe,European countries have increased their awareness of crisis,constantly advocated and strengthened the concept of "strategic independence",and taken more measures to improve their independent defence capabilities.However,in this process,problems are gradually exposed."It is difficult to speak with one voice" is an old problem of the EU,and also a pain point of defence integration.There is a huge gap in the cognition of EU member states on major issues concerning common security and defence,but the mechanism of the EU makes it necessary for member states to reach consensus.Throughout the development of EU defence cooperation,although France and Germany have played a constructive role in promoting integration,there are still some differences.France calls for Europe to develop its own defence forces and believes that Europe should strengthen its strategic independence by advancing defence integration and become a "pole of the world",while Germany advocates the development of defence independence,it cannot ignore the important role of NATO.In addition,for countries in Eastern Europe and Northern Europe,they strongly hope to maintain Trans-Atlantic relations and more believe in the defence capability of NATO,which makes it difficult to reach consensus on the development direction of defence cooperation within the EU,thus slowing down the process of defence integration.This paper focuses on the core issue of obstacles to the development of EU defence integration.Firstly,it reviews the historical process of European countries’ defence integration promotion during and after the Cold War and the new progress after the release of EU global strategy,and then explores the problems in the development process of EU defence integration.The problems are divided into three aspects:insufficient defence expenditure at both EU level and member states level,military industry competition from the United States and weak military construction capacity.Then,the internal and external obstacles that lead the EU into the dilemma of defence integration are discussed.The internal obstacles include the cognitive differences and the influence of strategic culture of member states and the inefficiency caused by the institutional mechanism setting of the EU.External obstacles include the restrictive relationship between the EU and NATO,the two-sided attitude of the United States,the relationship between Russia and the EU,the influence of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the factor of Brexit,which are intermixed to hinder the promotion of EU defence independence.Furthermore,it explores the effectiveness of the efforts of the EU to get rid of this dilemma,namely seeking flexible development strategy.At last,it draws the conclusion:The development of EU defence integration is confronted with numerous obstacles,and it still has a long way to go to seek defence independence.