ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book argues that political as well as economic preferences played a chief motivating factor behind the establishment of the European Defence Agency and the adoption of the ‘defence package’. It shows how structural pressures influenced the policymaking process. The book suggests that the European Commission devised legislative proposals that sat in stark contrast to the constellation of preferences that existed prior to the adoption of the ‘defence package’. It also shows that economic preferences completely determined policy outcomes, and, in the cases where economic preferences did triumph, there was still a strong element of national sovereign control associated to policy outcomes. The book also argues that larger and smaller member states alike do not simply abandon negotiations – even if they can cushion the losses from non-agreement.
