Rearming Europe: how to fund and govern Europe's future defence

Europe faces an existential security threat, created by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and exacerbated by recent changes in US policy on Ukraine and Europe. The European defence market suffers from fragmentation, home bias in procurement, low order numbers, and technological gaps. These problems reflect the combination of past reliance on the United States and the fragmented governance of defence in Europe. In response to the changing situation there have been several recent initiatives to increase European defence capabilities. At this event we discussed how adequate existing proposals are and how Europe can improve the governance and financing of its rearmament.

The event featured a presentation of the recent Policy Brief: The governance and funding of European rearmament, by Guntram B. Wolff, Armin Steinbach and Jeromin Zettelmeyer. This paper was prepared for the informal ECOFIN in Warsaw on 12 April 2025.