From words to weapons: the making of a European Defence Shield
The European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), signed in October 2022, serves as the foundational element of European defence shield efforts. Initially involving fifteen European states, ESSI has expanded to include twenty-four countries as of 2025, including neutral nations like Switzerland. This initiative emerged as a direct response to Russia’s systematic attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, highlighting Europe’s vulnerability to ballistic missile, drone attacks and other forms of threats. Parallel to ESSI, the broader European defence shield concept gained political momentum through a Greek-Polish proposal in May 2024, which the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen enthusiastically endorsed. These efforts to establish a common defence for Europe culminated in the ReArm Europe Plan, formally announced in March 2025 and subsequently rebranded as “Readiness 2030” following criticism over its terminology perceived as being too alarmist.
Von der Leyen’s comprehensive defence strategy represents an unprecedented commitment to European military capabilities, proposing to mobilise up to €800 billion over four years. The plan operates through key mechanisms: first, activating the national escape clause of the Stability and Growth Pact to provide €650 billion in fiscal space for defence spending; second, establishing the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument, which provides further €150 billion in long-maturity loans with repayment periods of up to 45 years, specifically targeting priority areas including missile defence, drones, cyber defence.
Aiding European industrial autonomy will be Turkey and South Korea, with strategic locations and expanding defence industries, who have applied to the loan-for-arms scheme, followed by Canada and the UK, further posing a direct challenge to American arms industries. This instrument aims to mitigate Europe’s rearmament by discouraging increasing US weapons exports to the EU bloc, which would solely benefit overseas weapon manufacturers rather than local ones. The European Sky Shield and Readiness 2030 reflect profound geopolitical insecurities and the need to reinvent defence.
Reshaping the continent’s security
The response of historically neutral states has increasingly aligned their military and strategic objectives with the frameworks of both the EU and NATO. Poland, the Baltic states, and the Nordic countries have intensified their integration with Western Europe, consolidating NATO’s eastern flank as a cohesive strategic bloc to counter Russian influence. Switzerland, traditionally committed to neutrality, has also moved towards more proactive defence cooperation, reflecting pragmatic adjustments to shared vulnerabilities. At the same time, the prospect of integrating Ukraine into a reconfigured European defence architecture signals a determination to extend Europe’s strategic commitment beyond its borders, even as its principal ally, the United States, has at times appeared ambivalent, most notably in moments suggesting tacit accommodation of Russian interests. The Alaska summit between the United States and Russia, for instance, underscored Europe’s marginalisation in major diplomatic negotiations: a meeting ostensibly convened to discuss Ukraine but held without European participation. Likewise, Xi Jinping’s address at the 25th SCO Summit in Tianjin and later at the national parade offered a further wake-up call of the shifting balance. Although not a formal military alliance, the SCO’s emphasis on economic integration through the Belt and Road Initiative and its growing security coordination across Eurasia risk sidelining the EU as a geopolitical actor. These developments highlight the imperative for the EU to overcome its internal divisions and enhance its geopolitical capacity if it is to remain an influential force in an increasingly multipolar world.
These issues push a fundamental transformation in European security governance, shifting from national fragmentation to an autonomous and cohesive bloc. The White Paper for European Defence, released in March 2025, identifies seven priority capability areas and commits to establishing “European preference” in defence procurement by 2026. The initiatives explicitly acknowledge uncertainties regarding American security guarantees and position European strategic autonomy as essential for continental security. The inclusion of Ukraine in the SAFE eligibility criteria demonstrates a pragmatic expansion of the European defence industry beyond EU boundaries. That said, considerable challenges persist: France’s initial reluctance to join ESSI, due to its over-reliance on American and Israeli systems rather than European alternatives such as the SAMP-T, illustrates the ongoing fragmentation between national interests and collective security needs.
It is crucial to recognise that the urgency for Europe to revitalise its governance reaches well beyond questions of collective defence. Defence, in this sense, becomes not an end in itself but one of the instruments through which Europe can strengthen its autonomy, affirm its leadership, and reestablish its role as a global leader. Its purpose should be to shape the world around it: forging durable partnerships, advancing a model of openness, and reasserting the cultural and normative influence that has distinguished the European project. This also means pushing the global rules in decisive areas, such as taxation of multinational corporations, digital governance and sustainable supply chains. Ultimately, only a cohesive and autonomous EU is capable of reducing its dependence on traditional alliances and exerting its values in a tangible and positive manner on the international stage.
