Convergence in an age of unpeace
As the biggest war since 1945 ravages European soil, European countries face a new set of unavoidable security challenges. The new US administration resents shouldering defence responsibilities for Europe. European countries must learn how to cope alone in a Trumpian world.
Deeper and faster defence integration with EU accession countries would help project European power and protect them against aggression. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has already spurred a significant shift towards greater cohesion among NATO and EU member states: Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and Finland in 2024; Denmark abolished its opt-out from the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in 2022; and the EU established a defence-industrial strategy for the first time in March 2024.
But more needs to be done. European countries must ramp up their defence, secure and develop new critical infrastructure, and stay competitive in the artificial intelligence (AI) race. Now, more than ever, there is a clear need for stronger and faster convergence of candidate countries with the EU, not just on technical standards but also on security and defence policy. Achieving this convergence will require policy upgrades in multiple domains, not least in the way the EU pursues its own enlargement.
This paper proposes two concrete options to accelerate defence alignment for EU accession countries with the rest of the EU. The first way is to expand the enlargement methodology. The second—and the core of this ECFR paper—is to embrace a more intergovernmental approach in creating defence cooperation roadmaps with EU accession countries.
About the author:
Gustav Gressel was a senior policy fellow with the Wider Europe Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Berlin office. His topics of focus include Russia, Eastern Europe, and defence policy.
Nicu Popescu is a distinguished policy fellow of the European Power programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, based in the Paris office.