Making a Virtue of Necessity Schenker and Kantian Teleology

The financial crisis has deeply affected European defence budgets and, as a consequence, the EU’s capability to act as a provider of global security. This paper assesses the extent to which pooling & sharing (P&S) of military capabilities is a viable plan to boost collective capacity-building and offset the heavy budget cut-backs, drawing impetus from the NATO ‘smart defence’ agenda. Although multilateral cooperation is proven more efficient than the status quo through the lens of economics, and a set of external stimuli would facilitate deeper military integration, the paper acknowledges that a fully-fledged EU defence market remains difficult to attain due to short-term political and strategic considerations. However, piecemeal progress in specific areas is possible and viable, if political conditions are met. The last section of the paper offers some policy recommendations towards a pragmatic and feasible roadmap for P&S. * Giovanni Faleg is a Visiting Researcher at CEPS and Ph.D. Candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Alessandro Giovannini is a Research Assistant at CEPS. They are particularly grateful to Frédéric Mérand and Daniel Gros for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed are attributable only to the authors in a personal capacity and not to any institution with which they are associated. ISBN 978-94-6138-270-0 © Copyright 2012, Centre for European Policy Studies. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior permission of CEPS. Centre for European Policy Studies ▪ Place du Congrès 1 ▪ B-1000 Brussels ▪ Tel: (32.2) 229.39.11 ▪ www.ceps.eu