Pretraži
Financing Ukraine's recovery: Consequences for the EU budget and budgetary control, and principles for success
This paper provides detailed insight on the use of the EU budget to support Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees. It explains the recent Commission proposal for a new ‘Ukraine Facility’ to finance the country and its recovery in the years 2024 to 2027. Furthermore, the paper addresses the challenges of ensuring full parliamentary scrutiny, democratic oversight, and effective budgetary control of the enormous amounts spent on Ukraine’s recovery. On top of that, the paper presents principles for a successful ...
European Peace Facility: State of play as of 31 March 2023
The European Peace Facility (EPF), a financial instrument outside the EU budget that has been operational since July 2021, finances activities with military implications. It funds equipment and training for EU partner countries' armies, as well as the common costs of EU military missions and operations abroad. It also funds the military component of EU civilian missions or exercises abroad, or of EU support to missions led by other international organisations. One year after the Russian invasion ...
A new chapter in EU-UK ties? [What Think Tanks are thinking]
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, have hailed the new political agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom as the opening of a new chapter in relations between the two. Ties have been uneasy ever since the UK left the EU, more than three years ago, hindering the development of much-needed cooperation in areas such as defence and scientific research. The new agreement in principle, called the Windsor Framework ...
Russia-Belarus military cooperation
As shown by the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus, the power of Aliaksandr Lukashenka depends entirely on Russia. That is why his regime has offered his country's territory to Russia to support it in its aggression against Ukraine. The question is whether the Belarusian army is capable of supporting Russia in direct battle, without further undermining the stability of Lukashenka's regime. As bilateral military cooperation progresses, with repetitive military exercises and a growing Russian military ...
Russia's war on Ukraine: Western-made tanks for Ukraine
Following Ukraine's repeated requests, and almost a year of hesitation and delicate negotiations, in January 2023, EU Member States, Norway, the UK and the US finally decided to send Western-made main battle tanks (MBTs) to Ukraine. This issue of whether to supply such tanks has been particularly contentious since the start of the war.
Annual report on the common security and defence policy (CSDP), 2022
During the January I 2023 plenary session, the European Parliament will vote on its 2022 annual report on the implementation of the common security and defence policy (CSDP). This year's report coincides with ground breaking developments in EU defence. Prepared and adopted by the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), the report focuses in part on Russia's illegal aggression against Ukraine and the EU's response, implementation of the Strategic Compass, EU defence initiatives and parliamentary scrutiny ...
A comparative analysis of Article 5 Washington Treaty (NATO) and Article 42(7) TEU (EU)
The Russian aggression against Ukraine has highlighted the relative confusion that exists over the obligations that states have under Article 5 of the (NATO) Washington Treaty and Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union. Clarification and explanation of these articles has become particularly urgent as overlap between NATO and EU membership increases, following Finland and Sweden's application to join NATO.
European Peace Facility: Ukraine and beyond
The European Peace Facility (EPF), operational since July 2021, finances activities with military implications, and supports the armies of partner countries and EU Member States with infrastructure, training and equipment. Reacting to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for the first time in its history the EU has now mobilised funds for the delivery by Member States of military equipment, including lethal weaponry, to assist a partner country.
The EU Rapid Deployment Capacity: This time, it’s for real?
The EU’s Strategic Compass (SC) calls for the creation of a ‘European Rapid Deployment Capacity’ (EU RDC) that would allow the EU to swiftly deploy up to 5 000 troops into non-permissive environments for different types of crises. The In-Depth Analysis (IDA) examines how this objective might be achieved successfully. It looks at the problems related to decision making and political will that have structurally hampered the deployment of the EU Battlegroups since their creation in 2007. It also looks ...
Outcome of the Madrid NATO Summit, June 2022
On 28-30 June 2022, NATO leaders met in Madrid and adopted a new strategic concept, rewriting their assessment of the threat environment in the light of Russia's war on Ukraine. NATO also overhauled its defence and deterrence posture, and officially invited Finland and Sweden to join the Alliance.