EU PESCO who’s who

#PESCO offers the opportunity to better understand the roles played by #EU nations regarding #Defence and the nations relationships.

Basics

Nations of the « Big 5 » (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, [UK]), who have major Defence Industry, are of course the main contributors to PESCO (in term of number of projects involvement).
But there is more to read :

3 of the 5 majors projects concern Logistic, especially Joint Logisting.
This is a good sound for Operations and for France which has a lack of logistic support equipment (as seen through Barkhane).

France and Italy : the 2 main contributors

As we could expect, #France and #Italy are the 2 nations that participate to most projects and are Coordinators of most projects too.
Italy is Coordinator of 4 projects for which have almost 1 member only : France.
This couple has been identified as a pooling.

When participating to a project, Germany is used to be the Coordinator.

Germany : its own interests centered

#Germany is often known to force its own vision and use EU as a lever of its own interest. The facts are that Germany clearly participate to fewer projects than France and Italy but is used to be the Coordinator of its projects (with 44% projects as Coordinator). Especially, it is Coordinator of several projects which are Military-Ops interest, while Germany is not used to participate to military operations.

Spain follows France and Germany.

Spain : the follower

I’m used to tell that #Spain follows France and Germany cooperation projects to get an industrial workshare.
PESCO clearly confirms that : While Spain leads 2 projects only, around 2/3 of the projects’ it participates are led by France or Germany (while France and Germany lead +/- 1/3 of PESCO projects).
France is its main Coordinator, with 9 projects.

The « Airbus » pooling

France, Germany and Spain (the 3 homelands of Airbus) are the « Airbus » pooling. More than Airbus only, it is 3 nations that share lot of Defence Industry communalities (Airbus, MBDA, Thales and more…).

We can regret that a nation that is engaged since long time into EU Defence (Atalanta, pooling & sharing…) don’t use its influence to play a better federative role in order to enhance a EU Defence such as France currently promotes.

Belgium : Military Ops interested

#Belgium is an active member. Almost all the projects it participates are « Military Ops » interests.
It is the 2nd nation (after France) in term of « Military Ops » balancing, before Spain, Germany and Italy.

Netherlands : the influencer

#Netherlands is an influencer. Its statistics classes it into the Opportunists, but is the Coordinator of the most major project, which is also the only one project it leads. This role is confirmed with the relationships pooling it has (its relationships classes it as one of the most « european » [used to work with lot of other nations] and the most esteemed with Spain).
The issue regarding Netherlands influence is that Netherlands (which holds NATO HQ) is used to play for Nato 1st, before playing EU defence industry. By the way, such as for the F-35, Netherlands can be an opportunity to US to sell their items in Europe and/or participare to PESCO.
We can regret that a nation that is engaged since long time into EU Defence (Atalanta, pooling & sharing…) don’t use its influence to play a better federative role in order to enhance a EU Defence such as France currently promotes.

Hungary, Czechia and Poland are clearly under Germany and Netherlands influences.

Greece

The role of #Greece is a bit unclear but is certainly to link with its policy regarding Turkey :
1/3 of its projects are Maritime projects. In addition, most of the projects it participates are « Joint » centered projects and/or have border security interests.
We could add that it leads several project but, such as the projects it participates, most are not « Milirary Ops » centered, which is coherent of a border security policy.
With strong relationships with Italy (Land & Maritime) and Bulgaria (Maritime, SOF), but also with Cyprus (SOF), Greece clearly seems through its PESCO participations to reinforce its protection against Turkey and develop key partners in this context.

The Opportunists

Hungary, Czechia and #Poland can be considered as « opportunists ».
The fact is that they are used to participate to several projects, but not to be Coordinator.
In addition, most of the projects they participate are out of « military ops » interest (such as the projects they lead).
They are clearly under Germany and Netherlands influences.

What are the aims of Poland ?

• In one hand, it develops its participations into PESCO, either Land, Cyber & Data, but also Maritime (where its role is not a primary role) ; mainly on network projects (Network logistic, communication, data…) and NextGen projects (Data & Space … but also expressed interests into FCAS and MGCS).
• In other hand, Poland did not made the choice of Europe, preferring to order US equipement (helicopters, Patriot missiles, F-35…) and reinforce its relations with US.

What the aims of Poland ? Is, under this dual attitude, Poland playing the role of spy for US regarding NextGen & Data/Cyber technologies and superiority ?

The Netherlands-Poland-Baltic pooling

The Netherlands pooling is clearly built around Belgium and Baltics nations. Influenced by Baltics, but also Netherlands strength in Europe, Poland has joined the group.
The couple Netherlands-Poland could be toxic for Finland, which could have to make the choice between Baltics and EU Defence industry.

The CBRN SaaS pooling (the Austria-Hungary pooling)

The former Austria-Hungary nations share good relationships and are used to participates to the same projects.

Sweden and Slovakia would begood opportunities for France to reinforce its aiming on PESCO projects.

The Opportunities

Some nations seem to be ready to play a greater role : Slovakia, Bulgaria, Sweden, Estonia and Portugal.
Currently, except Estonia, they are not parts of a pooling.
#Sweden projects balancing trends to France and Spain, so could represent a good opportunity to these 2 to reinforce their position.
Both Sweden and Slovakia have clearly a mindset in opposition to German’s play. In this context, both would be a good opportunity to counter-balance Germany in order to keep projects focussed on operational aspects, not on German economy.
Slovakia could also be an opportunity to France-Italy to reinforce their 4 common projects.

Read more about PESCO on EDA official website and/or PESCO official website.

© Julien Maire.