On 19 March 2025, the European Commission published its ‘Joint White Paper for European Defence Readiness 2030’. At the outset, many of the threat assessments, security priorities, and capability gaps contained therein are broadly the same as those which have been repeated countless times over the last few years. However, these have now been joined by a newfound urgency and focus in the wake of Europe’s recent reacquaintance with the Trump administration’s approach to foreign policy.
Highlighting the trans-Atlantic rift in the EU’s characteristically diplomatic wording, the paper stated: “Traditional allies and partners, such as the United States, are also changing their focus away from Europe to other regions of the world. This is something that we have been warned about many times but is now happening faster than many had anticipated”, and later adding, “the United States, traditionally a strong ally, is clear that it believes it is over-committed in Europe and needs to rebalance, reducing its historical role as a primary security guarantor.”
The remedies advocated in the white paper were largely unsurprising, having been openly discussed by multiple senior figures in Europe since February 2025. Broadly, the paper called for both “collaborative procurement”, and a “a massive ramp-up of European defence industrial production capacity”. However, the line on how open these efforts would be to non-European companies seemed somewhat contradictory.
On the one hand, parts of the document seemed to encourage industrial cooperation with external partners, including the US. However, one may justifiably ask how Europe plans to external industrial participation with its goal of ramping up European domestic industry, since these approaches would ostensibly be pulling in different directions. Indeed, a reconciliation between these two forces seems unlikely, with the balance of probability favouring European industrial interests, as explicitly stated elsewhere in the white paper: “the revision process of the EU directive on defence and sensitive security procurement scheduled for 2026 will take into account the Competitiveness Compass recommendation to introduce a European preference”, adding, “Investing in European defence readiness not only guarantees us the peace of tomorrow; it is also an enabler of our competitiveness ambition for European manufacturing.”
Consequently, the direction of travel suggests Europe will increasingly look internally to meet its defence needs. Europe’s industry looks set to reap the benefits, with this shift coming at precisely the time where EU member spending taps are opening, and with the bloc’s leadership planning to spend roughly EUR 800 billion on defence by 2030, under the ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030.
What is less clear is where Europe will draw the boundaries in introducing a “European preference”. For instance, are foreign subsidiaries to be counted as European domestic industry? Does UK industry count as European for the purposes of this policy? Will foreign companies be required to establish wholly European domestic production and supply chains before they can meaningfully compete for major European programmes? Clearer answers to such questions are needed, especially considering the number of European companies with strong ties outside Europe.
Furthermore, not all of Europe’s industrial sectors are equal, and currently there are definite limits to where Europe can look for domestic solutions. In the land domain, Europe has a wealth of very good alternatives to US equipment in tanks, artillery, infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), armoured personnel carriers (APCs), trucks, and protected patrol vehicles (PPVs). Likewise in the naval domain, Europe likewise has very respectable options for destroyers, frigates, corvettes, submarines, and unmanned vessels. However, the air and space domains are somewhat of a different story. While Europe does have a highly capable aerospace sector, with key areas such as fighter aircraft, research and development efforts are focussed on improving current 4.5 gen and developing future 6th gen aircraft, leaving a domestic gap in the current 5th gen. The elephant in the room here is the F-35 fighter, to which there is currently no direct European equivalent, and to which much of Europe has already committed to procuring. Elsewhere, the white paper listed strategic airlift as a capability gap, and it is unclear how this could be filled by any European solution before 2030, when no real European equivalent to the C-17 transport aircraft exists. A similar story can be seen with European satellite communication and remote sensing capabilities, both of which lag behind those of the US; though in positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), things look rosier, with Europe’s Galileo constellation offering a sovereign PNT capability.
In sum, the current limits of Europe’s defence-industrial portfolio suggest the continent will not be able to meet at least some of its capability objectives by 2030 without significant compromise on industrial policy. Indeed, given the sluggish pace of European procurement over the past several decades, along with the need for high-level reforms among many EU members, even Europe’s ability to spend EUR 800 billion by 2030 is in doubt. A further factor which may seriously delay progress is the potential for politicisation of procurement, especially in lucrative multilateral collective procurement programmes, and the potential for petty international squabbles it generates. All told, Europe has a Herculean task ahead of it, and one which will likely test its members’ ability to put the collective interests of Europe above their own narrow national self-interest.
Mark Cazalet
