PESCO, CARD, EDF: Strategy, Analysis, and Financing in the European Union Security Guarantee (Research Article)

In the article the authors analyze the institutional basis for strengthening the EU security and the implementation of specific projects designed to expand cooperation between the Member States in the defence and security sectors. The point at  issue  is about Permanent Structured Cooperation  (PESCO);  the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence  (CARD) and the European Defence Fund (EDF). The relevance of the comprehensive study of PESCO, CARD, EDF, which activities are aimed at ensuring  the strategic component of cooperation,  the analysis of  the defence sector and  funding priorities  in  the security sphere of  the Union have been proved.

The authors claim that PESCO has become a key strategic  initiative of  the EU, CARD  allows  coordinating  the  development  of  military  capabilities  in  the  Member  States;  the  EDF  was  created  to coordinate,  increase  investment  and  improve  defence  interoperability  between EU member  states. The  challenges  faced within  the  functioning  of  these  initiatives  have  been  analyzed.  It  is  alleged  that  a  key  challenge  for  the  CARD  is  the unwillingness of Member countries to share national defence plans, as well as the available and potential coordination and harmonization of defence planning within NATO’s Defence Planning. The peculiarities of specific projects financed within the  European  Defense  Fund  (“Ocean  2020”,  “Eurodrone”,  “SPIDER”,  “EuroSWARM”,  “TRAWA”,  “ACAMSII”, “Gossra”, “Vestlife”) have been analyzed. There is continued progress in the field of the EU security and defence: numerous defence projects have been initiated under PESCO; there is a synchronization of defence planning through the CARD; the investments in defence are stimulated by financing the defence research projects through the EDF, the improving military mobility is continuing; coordination of the EU-NATO cooperation is improving, etc.