11/06/2024 Paulius Kuncinas, Owen Mathews, Marcus Lippold, Remigijus Simasius.
European Parliament ©Wikipedia
Dear Commissioner Kubilius,
The team at the Centenary Policy Institute would like to offer our sincerest congratulations on your appointment as the European Union’s Defence and Space Commissioner.
We at Centenary Policy Institute (CPI) are greatly encouraged to have a strategic visionary in charge of this most important of portfolios.
Having read with great interest your Mission Letter of 17 September 2024 we would like to offer the following suggestions:
1. The EU and the Ukraine conflict.
Your Mission Letter notes that “in a time of great global instability and great expectations of Europeans … our common plan for European strength and unity focuses on ensuring our security in every sense.”
Clearly, Russia’s ongoing attack on Ukraine’s nationhood represents the most direct and most urgent challenge to Europe’s stability, not only in terms of physical threat but also in its challenge to the Europe’s strength, resolve and unity.
The Ukraine war is likely to enter its final and most critical phase under your tenure as Defence Commissioner. Ensuring that Ukraine is able to defend itself against Russian aggression is a key component to the wider security of the European continent.
In our view, key component of that successful deterrence will be identifying and promoting joint projects and technological synergies with Ukraine’s own defence sector which has enormous untapped potential.
Mobilizing funding for these joint projects is the biggest challenge at the time of de facto austerity in Germany and France. Which is why we would favour the use of European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to release funding at the European level and repurposing of Resilience and Recovery Funding (RRF) for common security projects.
2. EU Defence Industrial Strategy
The EU has tasked you with present a White Paper on the Future of European Defence in the first 100 days of your mandate - a study that “should frame a new approach to defence and identify investment needs to deliver full-spectrum European defence capabilities.”
We would suggest that a key component of this process is to build and extend existing ties with Ukraine’s defence sector into any proposed defence and investment plan. The logic behind this is twofold.
First, Ukraine, fighting for its existence, has become the crucible for extraordinary innovation in drone, electronic warfare, air defence and long range UAV technology which has delivered remarkable results on tiny budgets.
Secondly, Ukraine’s defence sector offers speedy production cycles and battlefield testing unrivalled by the EU’s defence sector. Ultimately, it is in Ukraine’s and EU’s interest to ensure it becomes self reliant and strategically autonomous based on examples of countries such as Israel.
3. Improving cooperation and support for Ukraine’s Defence Industry.
The opening in September 2024 of the European Defence Innovation Office in Kyiv marked a vital start in cooperation between the European Union and the Ukrainian Defence Technological and Industrial Base (DTIB).
According to then-Minister of Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin in May 2024, the gap between what Ukraine’s defence industry can produce and the funds available for weapons procurement amounts to $10 billion annually.
The EU must help close this gap by encouraging more joint ventures with Ukraine’s state-owned Ukroboronprom (which already has announced partnerships for local production with Rheinmetall, CSG and others).
4. European Air Shield, Cyber Defence.
Your Mission Statement calls for you to “start working with Member States on the design and implementation of a European Air Shield and cyber defence common project.” Ukraine’s recent experiences in combatting both massed aerial attack and determined cyber warfare by Russia makes the experience of Ukrainian innovators and defence manufacturers vital to the task of building up Europe’s resilience and capacity to counter such challenges more robustly and effectively.
5. EU-level Funding for Defence
You have been tasked with reinforcing the European Defence Fund to “further invest in high-end defence capabilities in critical areas such as naval, ground, air combat, space-based early warning and cyber.” Among the legislative tools at your disposal to promote and streamline “a true Single Market for Defence products and services” are the Common Procurement Act (EDIRPA) and of the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP).
You have a mandate to consider ways to “scale up such short-term measures to pave the way for a more ambitious future defence programme.” To that end, we would strongly recommend the formal inclusion of the European Defence Innovation Office in Kyiv and its joint ventures into the EU’s formal research and development and defence procurement structures as part of European Defence Industry Reinforcement programmes.
6. Public-Private Investment in Defence
Part of your brief is to “work to incentivise public and private investment in defence, notably working with the European Investment Bank (EIB), other financial institutions, and private banks to help finance and de-risk common defence projects and defence innovation.”
We would add that there is a vital opportunity here for the EU to encourage smaller EU start-ups and innovators who are ready to work with Ukraine’s defence industry and armed forces.
Existing examples of such public-private partnerships are the Ukrainian Freedom Fund (UFF) and D3 Venture Capital’s commitment of US$50 million to support Ukrainian defense tech startups, or Green Flag Ventures Capital Fund’s investment in Karadag Technologies, a Ukrainian developer of anti-UAV and electronic warfare systems.
Additionally, the launch of the MITS business accelerator in Kyiv, a collaboration between Ukrainian and US partners, marks a significant milestone for the sector and should have a European counterpart.
7. NATO
You have been asked to “contribute to strengthening the EU-NATO partnership [and] help to ensure that our cooperation with NATO continues to cover all threats, including those linked to cyber, hybrid or space.”
NATO’s ongoing engagement with Ukraine is a vital ongoing part of the EU’s security strategy. NATO’s nuclear umbrella remains the bedrock of European security. However, in the medium term there is a significant risk of low-level probing by Russia and its ally Belarus designed to test NATO resolve.
Operations such as encouraging waves of illegal migrants or major Russian military exercises near NATO borders carry a high escalatory risk, yet must also be met by forthright action. The EU must develop a coordinated defensive plan in cooperation not only with NATO but also with front-line Ukraine.
8. Helping Ukraine create Strategic Deterrence capability.
A key component of securing the EU’s eastern frontier against renewed Russian attack in the medium to long terms will be to assist Ukraine in developing a serious deterrence capability.
According to several leading Ukrainian military strategists, the closest that Ukraine will ever get to strategic deterrence that could pose a meaningful counterweight to nuclear-armed Russia is to develop Kyiv’s conventional medium, intermediate and long-range cruise and ballistic missile capability.
Building on a decades-long tradition of excellence in rocketry and space technology, Ukraine is well placed to develop its own missiles - as demonstrated by the recent successful test firing of the Palianytsia “rocket-drone” with a range of 700km. Cooperation with EU based missile makers will help Kyiv build this capability faster and more reliably.
9. Addressing European Voters’ Security Concerns
Your Mission Letter calls for you to “respond to the real and legitimate concerns and expectations that Europeans expressed at the last elections.” Prominent among these concerns are those on immigration, which largely falls beyond your remit.
But another security-related concern that you may address is the question of engaging Constructively with Russian-speaking minorities inside the EU. Since the beginning of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the prospect of the Kremlin using the grievances of Russian minorities as a causes belli has become a very real threat.
However, the response of several EU countries towards their Russian-speaking minorities has threatened to exacerbate the very problem that Europe is attempting to avoid. The cultural and language rights as well as the right to family life of Russian minorities should be the same as the rights accorded to any other minority group. That said, policies towards Russian language media should be treated as a Europe-wide national security question as much as a civil society issue.
As Defence Commissioner could encourage the creation of a Europe-wide security doctrine that balances respecting the rights of Russian minorities with the policing of inflammatory and divisive public discourse.
With respect and in anticipation of future fruitful cooperation.
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