Permanent structured cooperation on defence and security (PESCO)

KEY POINTS

Participating Member States

In all, 26 of the 27 Member States have opted to be part of PESCO: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden.

Objectives

The participating Member States work together to develop projects to:

• enhance military training and exercises;
• strengthen their capabilities, including in cyberspace.

While participation is voluntary, decisions remain in the hands of the individual Member States and the specific character of their security and defence policies is taken into account.

The participating Member States agree to cooperate in order to achieve approved objectives in security and defence, committing to more binding common commitments in the following five areas, as set out in Article 2 of Protocol 10 to the TEU.

• Investing in defence equipment:
  • regularly increase defence budgets;
  • increase defence investment expenditure to 20% of total defence spending;
  • increase joint and collaborative strategic defence capability projects;
  • increase spending on defence research and technology to 2% of total defence spending.
• Harmonising, pooling resources and reducing duplication:
  • play a substantial role in capability development, in line with EU ambition;
  • support the coordinated annual review on defence (CARD);
  • intensively involve the European Defence Fund, set up under Regulation (EU) 2021/697 (see summary), in multinational procurement;
  • draw up harmonised requirements for all capability development projects;
  • consider the joint use of existing capabilities;
  • increase cooperation on cyberdefence.
• Improving availability and deployability:
  • make strategically deployable formations available;
  • develop a database of capabilities that are ready to be rapidly deployed;
  • aim to fast-track national political commitment, including possibly reviewing national decision-making procedures;
  • provide support for personnel, equipment and training for common security and defence policy operations and missions;
  • contribute substantially to the EU battlegroups;
  • simplify and standardise cross-border military transport for rapid deployment;
  • agree on common evaluation and validation criteria for the EU battlegroups with NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation);
  • agree on common technical and operational standards for forces, to ensure interoperability with NATO;
  • play an active role in the main existing and future EU external action military structures, such as Eurocorps, the Movement Coordination Centre Europe (MCCE) and Air Transport & Air-to-Air Refuelling and other Exchanges of Services (Atares);
  • agree on an ambitious approach to common funding of military operations and missions under the common security and defence policy.
• Overcoming capability shortcomings:
  • help to overcome capability shortcomings identified in the capability development plan and the coordinated annual review on defence in order to strengthen the European defence technological and industrial base;
  • prioritise a collaborative approach to overcome national shortcomings;
  • take part in at least one project involving strategic capabilities under PESCO.
• Utilising the European Defence Agency and the defence industry:
  • use the European Defence Agency as the forum for joint capability development and consider the Organisation for Joint Armament Co-operation (OCCAR) for programme management;
  • ensure that projects make the European defence industry more competitive via an appropriate industrial policy;
  • ensure that cooperation programmes have a positive impact on the European defence technological and industrial base.

The Member States must submit national implementation plans that outline their capabilities and willingness to fulfil the commitments.

In March 2018, the Council of the European Union adopted a recommendation for a PESCO implementation roadmap, which would provide strategic direction and guidance to the Member States. It also set out a timeline for agreement on possible future projects and the main principles for projects to be adopted by the Council by the end of June 2018.

Amendments to Decision (CFSP) 2018/340

Decision (CFSP) 2018/340 has been amended five times.

• Decision (CFSP) 2018/1797 updated the list of projects, bringing the total to 34.
• Decision (CFSP) 2019/1909 updated the list of projects, bringing the total to 47.
• Decision (CFSP) 2020/1746 updated the list of projects, bringing the total to 46, reflecting the fact that the members of the European Union Training Mission Competence Centre project had decided to close the project.
• Decision (CFSP) 2021/2008 updated the list of projects, bringing the total to 60.
• Decision (CFSP) 2023/995 updated the list of projects, bringing the total to 72.