24 September 2019
One of the key challenges for the European Union is the protection of its citizens. While security issues are still the main responsibility of individual member states, those on the border bear the brunt while those inland enjoy protection without having to endure the personal, economic and societal costs. At the same time, feelings of insecurity are on the rise across the Union, and these are strengthened by fringe and extremist groups, which are gaining in popularity, and lead to greater political instability. With Brexit, the EU is losing a member state that contributed half of the overall funding on defence R&D. If nothing is done to reverse this trend, the bonds between the member states will become ever more tenuous.
Member states reach a political consensus regarding the benefits of EU action on security. The rationale for such a decision stems from the unequal exposure to threats among member states, which requires joint action and EU wide solidarity so that the burden does not fall mainly on the border countries – which have become de facto protectors of the whole EU.
Subsequently, the EU decides a series of concrete action targeted at improving overall security and equalising the burden of security provision for all member states. These initiatives included various aspects: general defence, cyber security and border control.
In terms of defence, the EU accepts that the current budget cannot fiance a “European army” but there are areas of defence spending where the EU decides to refocus its attention to make important contributions.
The EU budget amounts to about 1 per cent of GDP. By comparison, the average defence spending of the 28 Member States is now around 1.5 per cent of GDP (against a NATO commitment of 2 per cent of GDP). However, most of the military expenditure goes on personnel, only about one fifth of military spending, worth about 0.3 per cent of GDP goes towards equipment. To offset this, the EU invests in common procurement that buttresses the domestic security forces and increases the level of cohesion across the militaries of Europe.
However, one of the weakest points in Europe remains defence-related R&D. According to the European Parliament, the total annual defence R&D spending in the EU-28 does not even reach six billion euros, a fraction of the US spending level. Moreover, one half of the EU-28 total is in the UK, and over three-fourths of the remaining three billion euros are undertaken by France and Germany (with around 1.2 billion euros each).
There is very little defence R&D in the new member states. Poland is the only country among the V4 which undertakes at least some defence R&D, but at a much lower scale, around 50 million euros (per annum).
The Commission proposes that part of the EU budget to be redirected into joint R&D defence-related projects. The proposed amount of 13 billion euros is negligible relative to the EU economy, amounting to only two billion each year of the coming MFF. But this is still a substantial sum, given that annual defence R&D in the remaining EU27 amounts to only six billion euros.
During negotiations, MEPs from border states stress that where the defence R&D spending takes place should not be the main concern; it is more important to increase security for all EU members through the availability of better and more efficient weapons systems.
The new EU spending on R&D will be tendered competitively. Initially the incumbents in the three largest Member States take a lion’s share of this. But over time competition kicks in and fims
in all member states, including the V4 can get a growing share of the pie. The smaller and more exposed countries thus end up with a “double dividend”: their industries can participate in a market until now closed to them and their citizens benefit from improved security.
EU spending on defence R&D will presumably not be on developing the next heavy tank, but on future oriented projects which integrate new technologies, such as AI or nanotechnology in defence.
Cyber security is another important area for closer coordination. Cyber-attacks continue to increase in frequency and severity, threatening the operation of critical European infrastructure. The
power grid, the transport network and information and communication systems are all essential to maintain basic societal functions.
It also seems that foreign (mostly Russian) intervention is now based on digital means. Promoting fringe and extremist groups, sowing discontent, fear and general unrest are the main strategies used to weaken the EU. Both Brexit and the success of anti-EU parties are attributed to direct actions of foreign governments, which are not limited to funding but also involve advanced socio-technology implemented by farms of Internet trolls.
The importance of cyber security has been recognised at all political levels. However, action within the EU has been insufficient. The recent Network and Information Systems (NIS) Directive has reaffied the primacy of national responsibility and action, allocating only a slightly increased role (and budget) for the existing European Union Agency for Network and Information
Security (ENISA), which will henceforth be known as “the EU Agency for Cybersecurity”.
The EU contribution to Cyber Security is too limited. A recent report “Strengthening the EU’s cyber defence capabilities” notes that the main limitation of the current EU cyber defence setup is that it is an advisor, not an actor. ENISA does not have any operational competences and its budget is less than 20 million euros.
To make matters worse, fragmentation of competences among the member states is accompanied by serious concerns over staffing and resources at the EU level. For example, the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) has a successful track record on cybercrime, but it currently has a staff of only 52 people. The European External Action Service (EEAS) and European Defence Agency(EDA) combined currently have 12 people focusing on this area, while ENISA has a staff of 65 and CERT-EU has a staff of 30. In all of these organisations combined, the EU has a current staff of 159 individuals tasked with cyber security. The total might increase towards 200 with the recent budget increases for ENISA, but EU resources remain clearly insuffient compared to those of the US, for example.
In the case of the US, the staff of just one of the institutions tasked with cyber security and defence – the US Cyber Command’s (USCYBERCOM) Cyber National Mission Force Headquarters
(CNMF-HQ) – is close to 2,000. The corresponding 133 Cyber Mission Force (CMF) teams have now over 6,000.
The EU decides to reach a similar degree of cyber security, which means that the resources dedicated to cyber security are increased by a factor of 30. A force of about one thousand specialists became the initial starting point at a cost of around 200 million euros per annum, or less than one euro per inhabitant.
After this newly invested institution thwarts an attempt to disrupt the rail service in Poland, funds are increased yet again and regional command centres are built in Madrid, Warsaw and Copenhagen.
The control of borders is another area where the EU shifts funding to make an important contribution. The central problem is with sea “borders”, which are difficult to secure as the experience with the Mediterranean continues to show.
After the refugee crisis of 2015, the EU has set up what is called a Common Coast and Border Guard in the form of a substantially beefed up Frontex, based in Warsaw, which is scheduled to achieve a staff of several thousands of people over the next few years. Th budget of Frontex amounts now to somewhat more than 300 million euros. A multiple of that is spent on cyber security in the form of ENISA; this still represents only a fraction of one per cent of the overall budget.
As the number of migrants is bound to increase from the ongoing effects of the climate crisis, border security is just a part of a bigger story. The need for border infrastructure to detain, process and potentially settle migrants cannot be the sole responsibility of the southern countries. Therefore, the EU decided to redirect funding into promoting the voluntary participation of member states in common migration policies, after the previous relocation plan clearly was a failure.