Why Is European Union Defence Integration Difficult To Achieve?

Abstract

This thesis utilises the inter-governmentalism theory and the content analysis method to critically analyse the reasons why defence integration is difficult in the EU. The main primary empirical source for this thesis is the 2017 EU Council decision establishing the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO). The research gap identified in this research is that PESCO is a new EU Council Decision passed in December 2017 and this PESCO has not been widely studied since it’s newer. As such most of the debate in this thesis is dominated by researching the positives and drawbacks of PESCO in relation to EU defence integration. However the PESCO document alone cannot answer the main research question of why EU defence integration is difficult to achieve. As such secondary sources like academic articles are used to answer the research question. The main research focus is mostly on current defence issues and not the history of defence. In endeavoring to find answers to the main question of why defence integration is difficult in the EU, I looked at sub-questions related to the pros-and-cons of PESCO; the pros-and-cons of NATO; the effect of European defence clusters on EU efforts at defence integration; institutional challenges in the EU; the sovereignty issue and examples of the strategic positions of Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the CSDP. The new contribution I hoped to make was to try to link these arguments to the recent defence intgeration developments based on PESCO. The topic is complex and challenging but necessary for policymaking.