European By Default or European By Design?

In December 2025, I published a policy paper for ESCP Business School entitled ‘European By Default or European By Design? Arming European states through European military-industrial cooperation‘.

Abstract

The war in Ukraine has accelerated Europe’s rearmament, yet genuine military-industrial cooperation remains underused. This paper argues that such cooperation offers the most effective response to current geo-economic challenges and outlines four political and budgetary measures to strengthen Europe’s defence industry.

Keywords

Defence industry; European cooperation; European Union; State armament policy; Strategic autonomy

Executive Summary

Since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, European states have continued to rearm, either by importing military equipment from the United States or by favouring domestic industrial solutions. Despite proactive rhetoric, European cooperation has remained an underinvested political practice, meaning by default rather than by design. However, I demonstrate that European cooperation is a more appropriate practice than off-the-shelf purchases or autarky in responding to the geo-economic challenges posed by the war in Ukraine. I make four recommendations to support the political and institutional changes necessary for the success of European military-industrial cooperation.

• Recommendation 1: Increase the number of meetings between heads of state and government and their ministers, as well as the number of ‘European mobility’ positions in national administrations.
• Recommendation 2: Declassify data on European cooperation programmes and make the cooperation objectives set by the European Defence Agency (EDA) binding.
• Recommendation 3: Allocate a larger portion of the national budget for the acquisition of military equipment produced through European cooperation.
• Recommendation 4: Support the €131 billion budget covering industrial defence and space issues proposed by the European Commission for the next multiannual financial framework (MFF, 2028-2034).