Defense Burden Sharing and Military Cooperation in the EU27: A Descriptive Analysis (2002–2023)

This paper analyzes defense burden sharing and defense cooperation in the European Union. The efforts to build a common defense framework within the EU have significantly increased since the 2000s. However, figures seem to highlight a reversal in defense cooperation trends that may potentially jeopardize the EU common defense framework. The underlying cause can be attributed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014. In 2022, the recrudescence of war caused a disruption to which member states answered with an old-fashioned receipt, composed of higher military expenditure driven by increasing commitment in military equipment procurement, accompanied by decreasing defense cooperation. Data related to the participation in Permanent Structured Cooperation defense joint programs seem to empirically confirm this new trend, as well as the impact the conflict has had on defense burden sharing. Fragmentation thus appears to be growing and undoing the progress made.