ABSTRACT

This chapter provides some of the challenges associated with national preference formation and interdependence in the European defence sector. It describes how the balancing of market openness and autarky, economic health and military strength and sovereignty and cooperation plays out in a European context. The chapter argues that look consecutively at the constituent parts of the European defence industrial policy framework. The European Union (EU) Global Strategy makes clear that strategic autonomy is a goal for EU defence and that the industrial elements of this autonomy require sustained EU support. Whereas the European Defence Equipment Market referred more specifically to market liberalisation and defence equipment, the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base addressed more strategically salient factors such as defence research, security of supply and equipment standardisation. The most developed element of the EU’s defence industrial policy framework is law and regulation, or, to be more precise, EU primary and secondary law.