Now that the most militarily capable member state is on the way out of the European Union there have been proposals for greater defense collaboration between the countries that remain.
Without Britain, the EU is left with substantially degraded defense capacities. As they meet in Bratislava to discuss life after Brexit, EU leaders have taken the bold but risky move to draw attention to the EU’s continuing ability to deepen integration.
It is risky because, despite being a central commitment in the Maastricht Treaty, the EU has only made modest progress towards establishing a shared defense and security policy. Member states disagree on how much they should merge their military capabilities and have made slow progress towards their Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). This has so far progressed via a series of civilian and military conflict management missions.
These have been unexceptional, both in terms of size and military capability. The EU has created 1,500-strong, stand-by military forces called Battlegroups (composed of rotating member state armed forces) which have the capability to intervene swiftly for the purposes of managing or stabilizing conflicts. These have never been deployed.
