Defence Committee 

Oral evidence: The UK contribution to European security, HC 520

Tuesday 28 January 2025

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 28 January 2025.

Watch the meeting 

Members present: Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Chair); Mr Calvin Bailey; Alex Baker; Lincoln Jopp; Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck; Ian Roome; Michelle Scrogham; Fred Thomas; Derek Twigg.

Questions 1 - 31

Witnesses

I: Armida van Rij, Senior Research Fellow and Head of Europe Programme, Chatham House; Ed Arnold, Senior Research Fellow for European Security, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Armida van Rij and Ed Arnold.

Chair: I call to order the Defence Committee’s evidence session on the UK contribution to European security. It is a pleasure to warmly welcome our guests today. In particular, to give evidence is Armida van Rij, who is a senior research fellow and head of Europe programme at Chatham House. Also a warm welcome to Ed Arnold, who is a senior research fellow for European security at the Royal United Services Institute, RUSI. Thank you very much for giving evidence today to the Committee. Without further ado, we will start off with the questions. We are exploring key challenges to European security.

Q1                Fred Thomas: Good morning. Thank you both for joining us. My question is about threats to Europe and how they are perceived in other countries, as opposed to the UK. In the UK, we talk a lot about Ukraine, and rightly so. We try to emphasise the point for the British public to be aware that Ukraine has been invaded by Russia, and Russia is the biggest threat to our security and European security. Can you give us a sense, looking around Europe, of how other countries see it and whether they are as concentrated as we are on that particular threat, or whether there are other things that are higher up the agenda in other countries?

Armida van Rij: Thank you very much, Chair and the rest of the Committee, for having me here. In terms of the key threats to European security, there are four words really: Russia, China and climate change. I will go into a little bit more depth on those and then address the second half of your question, which is how those threats are perceived across Europe. You have talked about Ukraine. That is stating the obvious and it is certainly a major threat to the UK.

Beyond the immediate military threats, we have also seen a ramp-up of grey zone activities across Europe, whether those are dis and misinformation campaigns, sabotage activities in the Baltic or other kinds of threats. We should not discount those. They are a form of warfare. Dis and misinformation really frays the social cohesion of our countries and therefore has a major impact when we bring it to the political level. There is also, as a result, an increase of leaders who are perhaps more friendly and amenable to Russia or Putin’s policies.

Then we need to think about what Russia is trying to achieve in Europe, which is to destabilise our European institutions, whether that is NATO, the EU or our democratic institutions—all of those. It is also worth thinking about Russia’s actions outside of Europe, which will have an impact on Europe, for example the instability it is causing in west Africa and the Sahel. Those will have a direct impact on us through migration flows.

I have a few words about China. On Russia, there is a lot of agreement within the rest of Europe that that is a primary key threat. Obviously some of the frontline states are more vocal about this and have been for a very long time. Some of the states further away from the frontline are less directly affected, perhaps, in their views, but are waking up to the fact that it is a main threat. On China, there is less consensus within the EU on the nature of the threat and whether it is a threat at all. It is a different threat.

Here it may be worth pointing out that it is a different threat to the EU than it is to the UK. Where they share threats, it is about intellectual property infringement, espionage and actively creating economic dependencies, which all amount to security threats. For the EU, it is a little bit different because there are issues around dumping practices and overproduction, which impact social cohesion among member states.

In all of this, we need to think about the link between Russia and China. We also need to talk about Iran, North Korea and perhaps India in this context, sometimes called the CRINK or the “quartet of chaos” if you are the Economist, however you may like to refer to them. The point is that Russia, China and some other autocratic states are part of one systemic challenge and we should see them as one systemic challenge. The rest of Europe does not quite think of it in that way and still compartmentalises the security risks and threats, which then inhibits its comprehensive response.

I have a few quick words about climate change, because that is important. Climate change has a direct impact on our ability to project power. You may remember a few summers ago when it was a particularly hot day in the UK and an RAF runway melted. We have seen this effect already. Europe is the fastest‑heating continent in the world. There are impacts on bases through flooding or melting equipment or on military operations through dust and sandstorms. Equipment will erode much more quickly. All of that impacts our ability to project power and undertake military operations. We should not think of climate change as something that will not affect us in the defence space. It does already.

Then we need to think about the cascading impacts of climate change as well, which will lead to further instability and conflict. That will have ramifications for our security here, including more conflict over resources. The thing for the UK to think about—and we have already seen this a little bit domestically—is that it might change demands placed on the military. The military might be called out more to respond to humanitarian or natural disasters, which may impact training schedules, for example. All these are interconnected. I will pause there.

Q2                Fred Thomas: Before you start, can I ask another question? That was a fantastic scene setter. Thank you very much. We understand those three areas you have set out. I want to get straight into this concept that has been talked about recently of public perception and the need to bring the public on the journey as we think about our defence spending, both here and more widely across Europe. We have had a very unusual break with tradition here in the UK when the Government declassified the operations of an Astute-class submarine last week to tell the British public that they had deployed that submarine in response to a Russian vessel in UK waters, which is unusual. You could perceive that as the UK trying to make sure the British public know what is actually happening and understand the threat.

You look across Europe. Can you take us on a journey west from the frontline, from Ukraine to Poland, Germany and France, and talk about public perception of the threat? This is going to become more and more topical as pressure is put across the European countries to increase spending. You need public support to do things in democracies.

Ed Arnold: Linking to the first question, what happened in 2022 with Russia’s full-scale invasion really focused the minds within Europe. The UK recognised the threat of Russia much earlier, certainly internally. It did not quite reflect that in strategic documents, but certainly from 2018 and the Skripal incident and then the HMS Defender incident in 2021 Russia was enemy No. 1. When you look at public perception within the UK, you can still see that. Support for Ukraine remains very high within the UK. Polling out today suggested that two-thirds of the UK support higher defence spending.

The messaging to the public on all these issues is really important. In the past couple of years—it is not just the war—Covid was the prime example where you start to see what is happening overseas having an impact domestically, especially in terms of the war in Ukraine and impacts on cost of living. It was a catalyst; it was not the only reason. Within the UK particularly, people are far more perceptive.

In the east, I do not think that it ever went away. The issue was that, at the end of the Cold War, there was a lot of change. A lot of former members of the Warsaw pact gradually became NATO. Russia was still seen as the primary threat. You see this very clearly in the Baltic states and Finland, whereas within the UK and more west we started a decade of humanitarian intervention. We then moved on to counterinsurgency and counterterrorism after 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan, which were a much more difficult sell in terms of public perception, because they were discretionary operations. The sense now is that the threat posed by Russia is not discretionary. It has a much wider impact.

You are also starting to see, as Russian conventional forces have been denuded so much within Ukraine, that increase in hybrid, most clearly with all the subsea infrastructure incidents and attacks within the Baltic states. That is starting to show that Russia is starting to attack the functioning of civil societies. When you get that message, that is pretty important.

Slightly further west, Poland is going to get to 4.7% of GDP on defence spending this year. It is taking that threat seriously. It is also really important, when you look at the Polish situation, that it actually does not participate that much in taskforces and frameworks that are to do expeditionary or crisis management operations, because it is so focused on that threat.

Slightly west, finishing off with Germany, Germany has had a journey under the Zeitenwende over the last couple of years. I still do not think that it is a settled position within Germany. You see a very different view within the political parties and that is made more challenging because they operate coalition Governments. That is still evolving at the moment.

Finally, to end on a point of politics, I always see European security as being about domestic politics. If you want to understand what is happening within NATO and the EU, you have to look at what is happening in each nation. Each nation is undergoing serious political changes at the moment, which seriously affects that common threat picture. It is about not just recognising the threats, but also how to respond to them and getting those resources orientated towards them.

Q3                Mr Bailey: It was just to ask for some expansion on your point about the amount that countries are spending on defence. You spoke about the Polish passing through 4%. What is a strategically relevant level of defence expenditure, in your opinion?

Armida van Rij: I do not think that it is up to us to dictate how much a country should be spending.

Q4                Mr Bailey: It is not dictating. It is a view, is it not? You offered a view on Poland and how it is focusing its defence spending.

Armida van Rij: It is a level of spending that allows for the necessary investment in capabilities and troops that are required. That assessment will be different for each country.

Ed Arnold: The issue of defence spending is that it is one of the most easy metrics to make a comparison across allies, particularly in Europe, but it is only a measure of input, not output. It is quite difficult to look at that across the board. There are some nations that spend quite a lot on defence but correspondingly do not necessarily get the impact out of that. I would put the UK in that category. What is more important when you look at European security is the relative increases, particularly from 2014. That is a key indicator of where each of these countries feels threatened, principally by the new Russian territorial threat.

The difficulty is that it is easy to see it as percentages rather than absolute terms. It is interesting to note the damascene conversion by the new NATO Secretary-General, who has started to be very forceful on increasing defence expenditure to levels that, when he was the leader of a NATO nation, he was not particularly interested in. It shows, again, how political changes very quickly can impact that defence spending metric. It is a useful but not really reliable assessor of combat power. For example, it is just looking at the physical component of fighting power and what you have on paper, rather than how you can use it to fight.

Q5                Lincoln Jopp: On the politics of Europe and European cohesion, by which I mean the EU, we have a problem at the moment in terms of France and Germany being in some sort of political stasis because of the electoral cycle. In the meantime—we left it—how is the rest of the EU getting on in terms of its own cohesion?

Armida van Rij: There are a couple of elements there. The first is that France and Germany, as you alluded to, traditionally the drivers of the engine of the EU, are going through particular difficulties at the moment, not just because of their electoral cycles but also because the far right is on the heels of the moderates. We are seeing that very clearly and that has an impact on their decision making. For example, in the French draft budget, which was not passed by Michel Barnier, it reduced its support for Ukraine from €3 billion to €2 billion because of pressure from the far right. That had a direct impact on proposed policy.

We obviously know about Hungary, which is also a NATO member and a particularly difficult actor. It will continue to be a particularly difficult actor. It has only been emboldened because of Trump’s re-election in the US. We cannot forget that transatlantic link there as well between populist leaders—let us put it that way—in Europe and the US. The bigger point is that, as populist and/or far-right leaders gain traction in EU member states, which they are, whether they are in Government or not, that will influence Governments’ decisions in terms of how they think about particular policies.

Support for Ukraine at the moment is still a high priority across the EU, but things such as enlargement discussions and allowing Ukrainian products access to the single market are getting more sensitive. We saw some of the protests across Europe against that, particularly in Poland, which is a very strong supporter of the EU’s support for Ukraine. When it comes to things that would directly affect its bottom line, it is a little bit more sceptical. It is very clear that the EU is going to face a few years that are very difficult for internal cohesion and that that will have an impact on its external foreign policy and external relations.

Von der Leyen, the European Commission President, has a very clear set of ideas on who she will and will not work with. Her own red lines, if you will, are that you have to be pro-EU, pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine, pro‑democracy and rule of law et cetera. There are obviously a few countries that do not fall into that bucket any more, Hungary being one of them. That line helps to divide and splinter those populists in Europe. For example, Finland and Sweden are Governments currently in coalition with far-right parties, but they are supportive of Ukraine. That does not mean that we should ignore everything else that they might be doing domestically. On the security front, that is encouraging to see at the moment still.

Q6                Mr Bailey: Recognising the three threat pillars, Russia, as in its long-term challenge to NATO specifically, China and its leadership of the one systemic challenge, which may encompass Russia, and climate change as a key factor in destabilising the world order and our normal patterns, but then perhaps drawing in economics and public perception, which of these is the greatest threat to the UK, over and above or within a European context?

Ed Arnold: Even bringing in wider issues, such as economics, I still think that Russia is the primary threat, looking at threat being capability, intent and opportunity. The Russian Federation under Putin has always shown an intent. It was very clear from Putin’s millennium message and the 2007 Munich Security Conference speech all the way to his July 2021 essay. He was clear in what he wanted and about how he wanted to do it as well. With Georgia, the Ukrainian incidents in 2014, Litvinenko and Skripal, there was a long list of 20 years of intent and capability in terms of what President Putin wants.

Like I said, in terms of the economics, there are broader global issues at play. At the moment, we are seeing an intent to target the functioning of civil societies. It is very interesting how, for example, Finland conceptualises security. Finland conceptually views itself as an island. It sees the Gulf of Finland and keeping that open as a primary lifeline to its society. That is a very good way of looking at these things.

As you start to see those increasing attacks, and cyber as well, they are going to have huge economic impact, especially if a conflict of some sort, even a limited conflict, developed. The economic hit to Europe in that scenario is severe. That is, effectively, what deterrence is trying to do in terms of the argument for increased defence spending. You are spending more on your defence now to increase your deterrence so that that eventuality does not occur.

Armida van Rij: I agree with that, although the systemic bigger picture is very much part of that threat. Russia is part of that but, to me, it is the overarching threat, which is, “What are these countries trying to achieve?” They are making some headway in achieving those goals. It is thinking about them in the long term, rather than the next six months to a year or whatever, and particularly placing that in the global context of international fragmentation, where alliances are becoming more contested, particularly but not just because of the US. The WTO has not functioned in years at this point. Putting that in the global context, that is the main threat.

On your point about public perceptions, this is where measured communication is really important. I know that you had Sir Alex Younger here last week or a few weeks ago. He said something on a BBC show we were on together recently, which is that we also should not be doing Russia’s work for it. We should not necessarily over-panic, overreact et cetera. A measured communication strategy is really important. In the past, the UK has been a little bit hit and miss on that front. I am not a strat comms expert, so I cannot tell you how to do that. How do we get our society on board with defence spending and the trade-offs that that involves, without playing into Russia’s hands by creating fear? If we think about some of Finland’s lessons around resilience and a whole‑society approach, that is also about making the public understand that they have a part to play in the security of their country, regardless of what specific measures that may take.

Q7                Chair: We will now delve into UK defence relationships in Europe. It is said, according to the Centre for European Reform, that there is not even a secure communication system between the EU and NATO for the sharing of classified information. There are tensions between certain member states and a lack of trust, perhaps, between Turkey and Cyprus, which hampers things. I know that 23 out of 27 EU states are members of NATO. In your estimation, how effective is EU-NATO engagement?

Ed Arnold: Like all relationships, they go through rocky patches and there have been some, certainly over the last decade as the international security environment has changed. Since 2022, broadly speaking, they have improved significantly. I would also expect that relationship to improve greatly under the new Secretary-General, who comes from an EU member state as well. The NATO-EU joint declarations, which are periodically signed, are quite vanilla in a sense as they agree to co-operation, but now you start to see more clearly the particular roles that each organisation takes.

No one now doubts that NATO’s role of defence and deterrence is its objective to meet within the Euro-Atlantic. The position within the EU is slightly more confused because of the mechanisms that it comes up with in its foreign, security and defence policy. As an example, the EU strategic compass is, broadly speaking, an analogous document to the NATO strategic concept. Both are out to 2030.

The NATO strategic concept was due for review anyway in 2022, after a period of expeditionary operations within Afghanistan, and there was a definite shift to calling out Russia as the primary threat. In the EU situation, the strategic compass that was published in March 2022 was actually based on a threat assessment from 2020, so did not include the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the collapse of European missions within the Sahel or Russia’s renewed aggression against Ukraine. It was a bit of an odd document, I thought. It was very ambitious and well written for an EU document but, ultimately, if the threat perception is out of date, your strategy and policy is out of date.

The first basket of that is crisis management. In this world, Europeans have certainly lost the appetite for doing crisis management operations. On the EU side, it is still developing and needs to sit broadly in line with where NATO is going. That seems to be more in terms of defence industrial co-operation and renewing that on the European side to get capabilities delivered much more quickly than they have been.

Q8                Chair: I will come on to the UK but I want to concentrate on the EU-NATO side in terms of your estimation of the effectiveness of that.

Armida van Rij: The key point is that there is a lot of co-ordination but less co-operation. They might co-ordinate activities, but they do not actually co-operate and interlink. Your point about intelligence sharing is a key example of that. Why do they not want to share that? It is because some EU countries are not deemed to have good enough intelligence agencies and they are worried about leaks to Russia directly. There are key challenges there and then the political challenge that you mentioned over Turkey, Cyprus and Greece as well.

It is worth highlighting that there is quite a lot of co-operation at the working level. There are joint taskforces and co-operation on hybrid issues, military mobility, space, cyber, climate change and defence, disinformation, those kinds of things. If we look a little bit closer, those are the areas that the EU has traditionally done and NATO is now moving into a little bit more. At the working level it is fine. The political level and the intelligence sharing piece are more difficult.

Q9                Chair: On that particular point, the EU Commissioner for Defence and Space recently told the European Parliament that the EU knowledge of NATO targets is, surprisingly, “very limited”. It seems that, even on the operational level, let alone the political, there is that lack of awareness. As I think you have said in some of your writings, that is the Achilles heel: the EU-NATO relationship.

Armida van Rij: What he might have been referring to is the defence planning process, which is still classified at the moment. That is why it would not have direct access to that. The issue is that the lack of co‑operation also risks duplication. As Ed was saying, it is positive that new Sec‑Gen Rutte understands how the EU works, has taken part in EU Council meetings and seems very intent on increasing co-operation. Until some of those political issues are resolved, that will remain difficult. At the same time, on the EU side, as I mentioned, von der Leyen is clearly pushing into that space. We can perhaps discuss a little bit later on whether that is on defence and operational or industry. It is very much the latter. We need that co-operation.

Chair: We will definitely come on to that.

Ed Arnold: On that point, where there is an intent to co-operate at that sort of level, the hampering is not necessarily that the communication does not exist between the two, but the fact that NATO has NATO secrets and top secrets prevents the EU from viewing certain information. I do not think that NATO would declassify it for that reason.

As an example, when I was back in uniform at NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in 2014, on a Wednesday morning for the commander’s update brief to SACEUR, the EU mission to SHAPE came to provide a brief. Effectively, we were having a large meeting of 52 people talking principally about Ukraine at that time but all of the other areas within SACEUR’s AOR, and then we opened the door and a Finnish officer came in and basically said, “This is what CSDP missions have been doing” for around 10 minutes. Then he left the room and we all talked about Ukraine again.

There are mechanisms there, but I would not say that they deliver particular value. They are quite perfunctory. It was NATO at that time wanting to know what CSDP was up to. The EU could not access the NATO secrets to find out what NATO was actually doing in regard to the Ukraine crisis.

Q10            Chair: We will come back on NATO. No doubt Members will be looking to delve into that because some of us have served previously in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. In fact, the leader of the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, who is also a member of our Defence Committee, no doubt will be looking to question you about that in a bit.

I want to go on to the UK Government. There has been a lot of talk from our Government that that they want that UK-EU security pact. In your view, should we focus in on getting that UK-EU security pact, should we use our own leadership within NATO to improve co-operation with the EU, or can we achieve both?

Armida van Rij: Both. A UK-EU security pact would do something quite different than the UK’s role within NATO. We cannot assume that, if we have one, that replaces the other, if that makes sense. I am happy talking a bit more in terms of what a useful outcome for the security pact would be if that is useful.

Chair: Yes, just briefly, because one of the other Members wanted to ask about that as well.

Armida van Rij: Any negotiation on a UK-EU security pact takes place in the context of the wider UK-EU reset, which the UK Government have said they want to undertake. It also takes place in the context of the TCA review happening next year. The point on the security pact is that it is a useful way to build on the political declaration of 2019 and get to low-hanging fruit. It is not legally binding, so it is easier to do.

It has particularly added value because so far foreign policy co-operation between the UK and the EU has been ad hoc. So far, we have been in alignment, for example on sanctions on Russia. That might not always be the case in future, so having a particular forum or structured dialogue where those conversations can take place is useful. I will leave it there. I have more to say on what that might look like.

Chair: I promise that we will come back on to that.

Ed Arnold: I will agree and say both. They are not a substitute for one another. We will talk about it later, I am sure.

Chair: It is good to have your views on that for the record.

Q11            Alex Baker: Mr Arnold, we have a huge number of defence and security commitments beyond our boarder: NATO first, a whole host of multilateral forums within Europe, and then the JEF. It is that that I want to ask you about today. What role does the JEF play and how does that interact with NATO?

Ed Arnold: First and foremost, the JEF is designed and developing to be complementary to NATO. It is a very regionally focused membership, looking particularly at northern Europe. It came out of the Wales summit in 2014, so the JEF has done its first decade up to now. At the Visby summit at the end of last year, it signed a vision for another 10 years. The first point on the JEF is that it is a framework within European security that is here to stay and has ambitions.

That said, the second decade of the JEF is going to be far more challenging that we have seen in the first. The JEF needs to recognise that and orientate towards that, probably in terms of renewed political attention and taking on more of those military tasks within northern Europe, where it can take some of the pressure off, potentially, NATO, and act in a more flexible way.

Its key success thus far is that, with a convening role from the UK, among likeminded nations, when you look at defence increases since 2014 as the JEF compared to non-JEF NATO members, there is a significant 150% increase versus 103% averaged out for the others. The second metric is support to Ukraine. If you measure support committed to Ukraine from the JEF nations, it is close to $70 billion. When you look at European NATO, the other 18 members, from the datasets it is $58 billion. Looking at the JEF and what it has committed to Ukraine, that is significant, especially when the larger economies of France, Germany, Spain and Italy are not members of the JEF. That is a real strength.

Like I said, it is developing in a situation that is pretty difficult at the moment. I have been a little bit disappointed with how quickly it has been moving in terms of some threats, particularly within the Baltic Sea, that we have seen over the last four months. The old view, when you spoke to people about the JEF within its first decade, was always, “The JEF can act while NATO is doing the thinking”. That is less of an advantage now for the JEF, partly because the allied reaction force is now delegated to SACEUR, so he is able to deploy it without going to the NAC. Also, the JEF has never come up with how to operate within the Baltic Sea with Germany and Poland outside of it.

When you have seen the latest incidents with damage to cables in the Baltic Sea, it has actually been individual nations under article 3 and now also NATO deploying the new Baltic Sentinel mission to try to increase protection of those subsea cables. That is absolutely something that the JEF should have done, and should have done sooner.

Q12            Alex Baker: You have talked about some of the economic advantages of the JEF. What are the other broader advantages of a JEF deployment over a national or alternative multilateral deployment?

Ed Arnold: There is the advantage of it having a one-plus-one mechanism, whereas most European security frameworks have relied on unanimity. There is an assumption that that one has to be the UK, just because of where the operations are commanded from standing joint force headquarters, but theoretically it could also be just two nations under the JEF banner. That is probably the biggest advantage when you look at the military capabilities combined that the JEF has as well. For example, five of the 11 air forces within Europe that operate F-35s are JEF nations. Also, there was very good bilateral and trilateral co-operation within those nations that underpin.

The way that the new NATO family of plans works—the regional plans—is that effectively they extrapolate up from article 3 national plans into these three regional plans and a reinforcement plan. Under that construct, a stronger JEF automatically means a stronger NATO and a stronger Nordefco means a stronger JEF. I know that that synergy does not happen like that in practice, but that is the way that the complementarity of the JEF is continuing.

Q13            Alex Baker: The UK has played a key role in the JEF over the last decade, providing leadership and expertise. Is our leadership within the JEF still valued?

Ed Arnold: Yes, absolutely. There was a view at the leaders’ meeting in Tallinn that that was not on display as much as it had been in the past. Since the leaders’ meeting in Tallinn, I have heard that, at operational level, the co-operation and leadership from the UK was significant and far more advantageous and valuable to the members than other frameworks such as the Nordic-Baltic Eight. One key benefit of the JEF is that it is a framework nation lead. It is the UK in the lead, which is very clear. Generally speaking, in European security, when you have had other frameworks and taskforce initiatives that have peer leaders, for example UK‑France or France-Germany, they do not work. From a leadership point, this one works.

It was also interesting a couple of weeks ago when the announcement was made to activate Nordic Warden, which is, effectively a surveillance tool within the Baltics. The idea is that you use algorithms to try to identify Russian shadow fleet, so that then you can go and take a closer look. When the press release was there, the Prime Minister explicitly linked the JEF to his plan for change. There seems to be a lot more focus in on the JEF.

The next leaders’ meeting is due in Norway in May. I think that we are going to see quite a lot more, hopefully, in terms of JEF development. Just as the international calendar comes, it is just ahead of the NATO summit in June. That is an opportunity where the JEF can say to NATO, “These are those military tasks that we are going to take to focus in on northern Europe and make that flank much stronger”.

Q14            Alex Baker: Presumably, you think that our commitment to the JEF, over and above our commitment to NATO, is good value for money for UK taxpayers.

Ed Arnold: Yes, absolutely. If you are going to have a NATO-first defence strategy, it is the same as JEF-first really. When you look at the integrated review refresh in 2023, it was very clear that the priority is northern Europe, where the UK can lead and galvanise. That is absolutely the case in terms of those JEF nations. Those JEF nations individually and collectively are always going to want more engagement from the UK. There is a push and pull there but, broadly speaking, when you speak to allies, as I have done extensively, in terms of UK leadership and what they are getting out of the JEF, it is very valuable.

Q15            Mrs Lewell-Buck: Morning both. As you know, the UK has a number of bilateral relationships with other European powers. I am wondering whether I could explore with you what role those relationships play in contributing to overall European security.

Armida van Rij: Where to start? NATO is the cornerstone of the UK’s defence policy and that will continue to be the case. In addition to that, as you say, it has a number of bilateral relationships. The most important one is the relationship with the US because of the intelligence sharing. In the European context, the most important one is France followed by Germany and Poland. We can argue who comes second and third.

I might just say a few words about France and let you talk about Germany, because I know that you have written about that recently. When we talk about these bilateral relationships, again, it is not a trade-off. It should not be either bilateral or NATO, or either bilateral or a UK-EU security pact. All of this cumulatively amounts to better, stronger and more European security, which is better for the UK and its economy. We need to think of these relationships as cumulative rather than trade-offs.

They are difficult, are politically sensitive and have to be managed very carefully. We did a big study on UK-French defence and security relations from 2016 to 2018, so at the height of Brexit negotiations and a particularly tense time. Officers would have told you then, and I am pretty confident would continue to tell you today, that, at the operational level, it is fine. Things work. It is a good, solid relationship. The political level is what gets difficult and potentially more sensitive.

I will not go into why the UK and France’s relationship is so deep and all the issues of strategic culture. Both are nuclear powers, et cetera. That is fairly obvious. It is worth looking at some of the lessons from the bilateral defence treaties that have been made over the past couple of decades in terms of what has and has not worked. Particularly if we look at the Lancaster House treaties of 2010, it has become clear since then that highly ambitious industrial co-operation projects are less likely to succeed than projects that are more budget friendly and have shorter timescales. I am thinking, for example, of the future combat air system, which initially was meant to be with France and a partner country, but was abandoned. Now both countries are pursuing their own FCAS projects.

The other thing worth mentioning in the context of the relationship with France is that the bilateral UK-French relationship has always been defined by the UK’s relationship with the US. That has made it a little bit difficult. The most public bit of evidence around that is obviously the AUKUS discussions and developments. That threesome, if you will, is a difficult one to navigate at the political level. I will leave it there and hand over to Ed.

Ed Arnold: I agree that they all complement each other to an extent. I will come back to that, but I will just cover Germany quickly. You are right in terms of the priorities: France, Germany. Under this new Government in the UK, Germany has seen the Trinity House agreement on defence co‑operation as part of a pillar of a treaty-based relationship, which is currently being negotiated by the Foreign Ministries. That is significant. The UK-France relationship is good and, certainly from the Ministries of Defence, the relationship has not really been impacted by the political challenges post Brexit. We already co-operate significantly with France, so there is not actually that much to keep adding to within what you are able to do.

Within Germany, it is much bigger. We are starting to look at those areas or relationships that have been underutilised in the past and to use them far more. If you look at UK-German objectives within NATO, they are one and the same, so it is certainly strengthening NATO also in that regard.

Back to my earlier point about complementarity, they do, but since Brexit you have seen a proliferation of these defence, security and foreign policy relationships. A lot of paperwork has been signed between Foreign Ministers, Defence Ministers and premiers. That is because, under the TCA, the UK cannot negotiate a policy area covered by the TCA and defence and security is outside of it.

This all means that these new relationships have to be resourced. You are signing in terms of increased co-operation. I worry sometimes that a lot of the deal is done by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, but actually, when you look at the resourcing and implementation of that, the resources come from the MOD. It is not too difficult to look at the current relationships also within a NATO context. If all these individual nations start calling on the UK for the support that we have signed up to, very quickly you could reach overstretch.

For example, if Estonia requests that we increase our battlegroup up to brigade there, we still have mutual security treaties with Finland and Sweden independently from NATO. We are also required on Operation Sandrock to reinforce Kosovo in the KFOR mission there. Like I say, very quickly, if crises happen across Europe and these individual nations very early call on UK support, it is going to be quite a challenge to make sure that we live up to all these things that we have said we would with limited resources.

Q16            Mrs Lewell-Buck: Would you say that they are more a statement of intent and co-operation than actually anyone envisaging any of it being delivered on?

Ed Arnold: There is an intent to deliver on them. It is just the amount that we have undertaken, particularly in the last couple of years. With Finland, I think that we have done three within the last four or five years. Some of those things are relatively easy to do. If it is increased intelligence co‑operation, sharing surveillance et cetera, that can relatively easily be resourced. It is when you need more of a commitment from UK capabilities, especially if it was, for example, persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. That is going to be a challenge with other aspects.

Another example is that after the 7 October attacks we had our maritime patrol aircraft over in the Mediterranean. If our maritime patrol is in the Mediterranean, it is not in the High North looking for submarines as well. All these relationships can pull in different ways in some regard. The UK needs to be very cautious of not getting overstretched in those circumstances.

Armida van Rij: That is also about prioritisation, I guess. I want to add to that, which is the point on the flurry of bilateral declarations and treaties that we have seen—well, few treaties, but declarations. The UK does this as a standalone country, putting it bluntly, but, when it negotiates with other European partners that are also members of the EU, while those might be bilateral relations the EU member states will also always consult with the European Commission. All of this for them takes place in the context of being an EU member state and that will always be the key priority. It is worth thinking about it from the other side as well.

Q17            Mrs Lewell-Buck: You have both mentioned political instability across European countries. Do you think that any of these bilateral arrangements are at risk because of that?

Armida van Rij: Not with the ones I know, no. We will see what happens in France, but, ultimately, that relationship is so deep. They share nuclear intelligence and nuclear facilities. It is very hard to undo some of that. It depends a little bit on how potential disruptive parties feel about defence and security policy.

Where there might be slightly more risk is in Germany, for example, where there are parties that call themselves peace advocates and things like that. It is very unlikely, however, that they would come into a governing coalition, so I do not see that as a major risk. The other agreements that have been signed have all been with countries that are very strong on the defence and security space and it is obvious why the UK would go for those.

Q18            Mrs Lewell-Buck: Is there any country that we do not have a bilateral with within Europe that you think we should?

Armida van Rij: Do we have anything with Italy?

Ed Arnold: Yes, we do, mainly on the economic security side and now GCAP in terms of the treaty for that development. I do not think that there are any gaps that you would look at and say that that is something that we really need to pursue. Say your Foreign Ministers go to a signing ceremony. There is value in that relationship and binding it together as well. We have very good coverage. Like I say, there was a proliferation of them over the last decade or so.

There are ones that are very strong. Although we have talked more traditionally about France and Germany thus far, the relationship that the UK has with Norway, as an example, is genuinely significant and growing.

Armida van Rij: And Sweden and Holland.

Ed Arnold: Yes, mutual. The suggestion had been at some point that the UK is trying to look at alternative arrangements away from the traditional relationships that we have had with France and Germany. They all do slightly different things. For example, the nuclear co‑operation that Armida spoke about is something we only have with France, so it is not going to then be prejudiced by other relationships. With that binding threat that we have now with Russia, particularly on defence and security, all the countries are moving in the same direction, so I do not think that there are really any risks associated with that at the moment.

Q19            Fred Thomas: This is quite a direct question, Ms van Rij. Brexit has made Europe less secure. Has it made Britain less secure?

Armida van Rij: That is loaded. Brexit has obviously complicated UK engagement in EU defence mechanisms. As the EU, especially the European Commission, is moving increasingly into that space, particularly in the defence industrial space, if we, as in the UK and the EU, cannot sort this relationship out, particularly on the defence industrial front, there is a risk that UK defence companies miss out on potential EU funds. That might have indirect implications for UK security.

Ultimately, because of everything we have said so far, NATO being the cornerstone of UK defence policy, I would not want to go as far as to say that leaving the EU has made Britain specifically less secure. It has certainly made it more difficult to co-operate on foreign security and defence policies, and, therefore, indirectly might have consequences. I recognise that that is a very politician’s answer.

Chair: That was very diplomatically answered and it was a very loaded question.

Q20            Michelle Scrogham: Thank you both for your time today. You have touched on some of those relationships. What do you see as being the key British relationships and their contribution to the European security?

Armida van Rij: It is very much the ones that we have talked about so far. I reiterate the point that these are cumulative. They are not trade-offs. We can get into this now or later, but there is something beyond a framework. We need to think about a better defence relationship between the UK and the EU, because, ultimately, in the medium term, that will help with developing capabilities, which will help keep Europe, as a continent, safe and secure. I do not think that I have anything further to add on that specifically.

Ed Arnold: I would reiterate what I have heard from a lot of officials and experts from Finland and Sweden in terms of the UK’s support during their transition, moving from signing accession protocols and going into NATO, and the two political declarations that we signed with them very early on. From a domestic point of view, they were seen as very significant. Also, there is that ongoing support. For Finland and Sweden, joining NATO as a nuclear alliance is significant for both of them. The UK has continued to support that, like I said, with a couple of bilateral relations with Finland since. That ongoing support has been there from a UK point of view. That has been very valuable to those nations and will continue to be so.

Armida van Rij: Beyond Finland and Sweden, the UK is very much looked to by its European partners as a leader in security and defence. There is always a bit of a sense of, “If the UK is training Ukrainian troops, maybe we can do it as well”. It is seen as a leader. Where the UK goes, others may consider following. The UK cannot underestimate that leadership role. Of course, that has to be backed up by capabilities, troops and the actual ability to do all of this as well.

Q21            Michelle Scrogham: I am specifically looking at where those relationships complement each other or where there are tensions. Which of those relationships do you see as complementary? Where do you see other relationships where there could be tension within that?

Armida van Rij: On the complementarity front, the existing gap is the UK-EU relationship, which has not been hammered out. As we were talking about earlier, that would provide a framework for discussions and co‑operation. The fact that that does not exist at the moment is a gap and should be redressed. In terms of tensions, I can only refer back to what Ed was saying earlier in terms of making sure that all these bilateral relationships are adequately staffed and resourced, from both sides, really, not just the UK, but also the partner country.

Ed Arnold: That is really the only risk, for example in terms of two simultaneous deployments being required, one potentially under the JEF banner and then one potentially under the combined expeditionary force banner, at the same time that the UK is potentially exercising or deploying at brigade level to Estonia. That is when you are going to start to see the potential tensions.

That is not necessarily unique to the UK. Within European security, troops are traditionally double or triple-hatted. Even when they are triple-hatted for external operations, they are also then used internally for things such as covid vaccinations, et cetera, and sometimes as a fourth emergency service. All European nations have this issue. Like I say, it will not be uncovered until there are times of crisis.

Q22            Michelle Scrogham: We have many multilateral and bilateral agreements. Do you feel that that ecosystem works well or are any of those agreements actually hindering and getting in the way of one another?

Ed Arnold: They could be rationalised. Again, within European security, generally speaking, frameworks and initiatives that are not doing so well do not get decisively killed off. They just carry on in the background. While that is not necessarily a real problem, a lack of capacity is. For example, with a lot of these overlapping frameworks, you will have additional meetings on the sidelines. If there is a NATO defence ministerial in Oslo, you will then also have a JEF meeting, because all of the Defence Ministers are there. You might also have a Nordefco meeting. You might also have a Northern Group meeting, which is the same membership as the JEF plus Germany and Poland.

The issue with all of that is that, from, again, an MOD perspective, largely, on that example, those meetings all have to be staffed, but they have the same agenda and they are all broadly talking about the same thing. There is an element whereby you can look at some of these relationships, to Armida’s earlier point, to prioritise them. Quite often, we see a meeting of one of these frameworks as an end itself, so we measure the health of that organisation by a meeting, which is not particularly valuable. For example, in terms of a JEF-plus agreement, which is quite loosely defined at the moment, where Poland and Germany are there, why is the UK MOD having to staff a JEF meeting and a Northern Group meeting to talk about exactly the same thing?

It would probably be better just to say to Germany, “Shall we all just get together and discuss? It does not really matter about what flag is on the table”. If you did that at a European level, not just a UK level, you would certainly get easier mechanisms, probably slightly more quickly. Sometimes, these things can become quite perfunctory from a foreign policy perspective, whereas 10 years ago that did not really matter. In the security environment now, ministerial attention and time is very valuable on certain things and we do need to prioritise them.

Q23            Mr Bailey: To your point about the multi-attribution and not understanding those risks until such time as the button is actually pushed, we have struggled to get organisations that have sat in front of us to accept that as a valid risk. Is there anything more that we can do to go after the point that you have made?

Ed Arnold: It is very difficult because, again, these things are a risk. They could manifest at a certain point in time. It is not just the UK but other European countries that have been lucky in the sense that they have not been found out at a particular point in times, when all these demands are suddenly placed on them.

The other aspect of the military is that they are very good at adapting reactively to these things. There is quite a lot of leeway or things that you could potentially do differently and quite reactively to mitigate these. Unlike the EU defence and security structures, NATO is the one that has the mechanism to actually go and kick the tyres on vehicles and say, “No, this unit is allocated to this task and it cannot move off it”.

From a NATO perspective, inviting greater input and discussing with NATO the process of how it actually does that is probably one thing you can do. The other thing is just doing the analysis on what the UK has in terms of capabilities and a list of its tasks. It is extensive. What the MOD would probably suggest is, for example, the mutual defence clause that we have with Finland and Sweden. It is defined in a sense of what they do, but there are no troops to task within that.

Similarly, for article 5 of NATO, there are no troops to task. There is nothing to say, “If this happens, this portion of your defence capability has to be put to that”. Like I said, European nations have always been doing it. The EU does it. NATO has done it in the past. It is starting to become less of an issue. Regional plans greatly help in that, because they are an extrapolation of commitments under article 3. It was far more difficult when we were, for example, doing ISAF within Afghanistan of DSACEUR’s force generation role of effectively going to national capitals and trying to get them to deploy. Then you had the issues of national caveats as well.

That is another thing to start to look at as we increasingly rely on other European relations. We have to look at national caveats and try to get as much standardisation in as possible because, in those examples, a nation might decide to deploy part of its forces, but it might have different rules of engagement. It might have different operating constraints and that can cause issues operationally.

Q24            Derek Twigg: I just wanted to explore in a bit more detail the EU role in European defence and whether that has changed since the invasion of Ukraine. I am going to say just a couple of things first. I remember, even going back to when I was a Defence Minister in the previous Labour Government, that, every now and again, it would appear in the press that the EU wanted to set up its own EU army or EU defence. That used to pop up every now and again.

My question in that context is this: what is it they should be doing? There seems to be quite a confusing picture. It is particularly not helped by Brexit, in terms of the UK’s relationship. What is it that the EU actually does and what should it be doing? There is quite a bit of confusion around at the moment and probably a waste of resources in terms of duplication. Has that changed since the invasion of Ukraine?

Armida van Rij: Yes, it absolutely has. The EU’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine changed not just its thinking about defence and security, but also its thinking about energy security, enlargement and all those issues. It really had a ripple effect throughout lots of different policy areas of the EU.

I want to first address this EU army point, which is something that is just refusing to die. That will not happen. To be honest, I do not even know where it came from. There was an idea, back in the 1950s, for what I think was called the European defence community. France rejected it. That was perhaps the closest proposal we might have seen to something like an EU army. It was rejected. It is just not going to happen, certainly in the foreseeable future.

Putting that firmly aside, it is worth talking a little bit about the EU as a security and defence actor versus the European Commission as a security and defence actor, because there is a difference. Commission President von der Leyen has made it very clear that defence and security is a key priority for her second five-year term. She created a post of a Defence and Space Commissioner that has not existed previously, as a clear indication of her priority setting of that. There has been a whole flurry of different initiatives, which I can talk about a bit more in a second, but she has made it a clear priority.

That is leading to a bit of a tug of war between the Commission and the member states over this, because defence, security and foreign policy is not an EU competency, which means that, technically, member states are responsible for that. Some member states are uncomfortable with the Commission moving into that space, because they want to keep ownership over their defence policies. That tug of war is going to play out over the next few years and we will see that.

Where the dust is beginning to settle a little bit is clearly in what, as you are saying, the EU will do in this regard. Also taking into account your point on NATO, the European Commission is going to focus predominantly on the European defence industrial piece. What that means in practice—and what we certainly hope it means in practice—is that, over time, EU funds will be used to plug capability gaps, which might be identified in NATO but, ultimately, help keep Europe as a whole secure. When we are talking about a European pillar in NATO, that is what we mean really.

I am not just making this up. The political guidelines, so the speech where von der Leyen clearly indicates her policy priorities, which she made to the European Parliament as part of her re-election campaign back in July of last year, made that very clear in terms of the focus on defence industrial. I always get the acronym wrong, because I am dyslexic. There are EU missions and operations under CSDP, but those are crisis management operations, rather than fighting operations, if that makes sense.

Kubilius, the former Lithuanian Prime Minister, who is the new Defence Commissioner, has talked about building a European defence union but, again, that focuses very much on defence industry. If we look at his mission letter, it talks about streamlined governance, common threat analysis and strengthening the defence industrial base.

What is interesting is the way in which the EU is starting to think about putting more money behind this. At the moment, the funding for this is very limited, too limited. The biggest fund so far has been the European defence fund, which had about €8 billion to spend over the EU’s budget term from 2021 to 2027. As part of the European defence industrial strategy, clear targets are being set in terms of what is expected to be bought European, capability gaps that need to be plugged, et cetera.

This is still going to be very difficult, as I say, because of that tug of war. Member states will continue to push back on it. I saw some commentary recently that basically described it as the Commission trying to bribe member states by luring them with money, essentially, to try to co-operate better. Ultimately, they are trying to address the high levels of fragmentation in the European defence industry. Ed can probably talk better than I can about the different numbers of tanks and things like that that we have in Europe, which all have impacts on interoperability.

The key point here is the piece about EU-NATO co-operation and how that will enable it. The EU is the only power—NATO cannot do this; it can do it a little bit through standardisation agreements and STANAGs—that can actually legislate and regulate on maintaining certain levels of stockpiles and of ammunition. NATO cannot do that. That is where we should think of this as a positive, complementary step, rather than fearing duplication and that the EU is going to take over NATO as an organisation, which it is not.

Where there are current disagreements in this defence industrial debate is over third‑country participation, which has an impact on the UK and the extent to which the UK will be able to participate in some of these initiatives. Some initiatives currently allow for third-country participation. PESCO is one of them. That does not mean it is easy, of course, but it is possible.

Perhaps it is briefly worth mentioning the European Peace Facility, which is an off-budget mechanism that basically allows member states to reimburse equipment bought for Ukraine. It has a wider remit than that, but it has been used for that specifically.

If we think about the EU’s role as a whole, beyond the Commission, in security, of course it is much wider than just defence industrial but, again, I would caution against fears of it taking over operationally. It has been hugely important in terms of sanctions on Russia and not just Russia. It has a hybrid toolbox. We can discuss whether or not that is effective. There is the point about the legal capacity, which I have mentioned, to enforce some of this.

Then increasingly relevant to this discussion about national security is also its economic security toolbox, which is a series of measures developed in response to, initially, the first Trump Administration and then China. Now, it might be used against the Trump Administration again, but that is essentially trying to continue to play by WTO rules on economic issues. That has an impact when it comes to things like exporting sensitive chips, semiconductors and those kinds of things.

Ed Arnold: First, to cover off the EU army, Kaja Kallas, the new High Representative, yesterday said that is not what this is about. This is building up capabilities for Europe and I agree with Armida that that is where the EU’s financial instrument probably needs large reform on how it currently does business, in terms of acquisition, procurement, capability, development, but, if it can marry those two things up, that is absolutely what the EU should be doing.

In terms of Kaja Kallas, there will be a real change to the previous High Representative in terms of EU defence and security policy. Yes, there is a new position of EU Defence and Space Commissioner. I am sceptical when the EU creates new organisations within the institution as to whether that would actually develop value itself, although it might. It is unescapable, now that you have a Lithuanian and an Estonian pushing defence, security and foreign policy from an EU perspective. That will be a huge change. Kaja Kallas is a very good communicator. If she is able to work particularly with the Commission President on that new agenda, the EU is hopefully going to change pretty quickly and quite fundamentally.

In terms of what it does at the moment, this is where I see the biggest tension. We have mentioned CSDP missions and, if you look at a map of where CSDP is currently deployed, the things that leap out are the Balkans and north Africa in terms of missions. Missions generally are quite long in duration and have been going for a number of years. They are more comfortable with naval missions. They are useful and valuable in terms of what they are doing operationally. They do not make a particular strategic difference. Like I said, this is where there is a bit of a tension within the EU and it is probably one more of really having a proper defence and security strategy.

The strategic compass, which was published in 2022, has crisis management as its first basket, but that was based on a threat assessment that is totally out of date. In terms of European participation in missions out of area, whether it has been NATO or EU, they do not have a good track record, principally in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. There has been a total collapse in European missions within the Sahel over the last decade because of the way that they were configured and, effectively, Russia was able to pick off the French. Because the French were the lead for a number of those missions, they all deteriorated.

It is actually quite difficult to understand what CSDP is going to do going forward. There is still an element of unanimity, which hurts the EU. A prime example of this is the military mission for training Ukrainians. Training is something that the EU has dined out on for decades, to say, “This is what really we do. It is what we are really good at and NATO has not been very good at”. That delineation is quite clear, but it took far too long to establish an EU training mission.

Now that it is established, it is going quite well but, at the time, Sweden and Finland, which were not members of NATO, decided to join Interflex within the UK because they were waiting for the EU to develop that mission. It is the same in terms of anti-Houthi operations within the Red Sea. The EU took far too long to decide the mission parameters. That is something that we have to recognise, bearing in mind what happens under a potential UK-EU defence and security pact. The UK operational tempo and strategic culture is not a good fit.

It is not just about creating the procedures and the ability for us to join CSDP. If there is a crisis and it needs a military intervention of some sort, the UK just wants to go and deal with that threat. That is primarily why the UK and the US work well, in terms of those operations.

Then there is also a wider point. This is not just EU. The example of this I would use is the evacuation of Khartoum in 2023. Again, we have so many of these taskforces that are designed principally for non-combatant evacuation operations, of the type that we saw in Khartoum and Kabul, and, when the crisis happens, it is always just national missions.

In terms of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the longest NATO military operation that it has ever undertaken was a national operation to withdraw troops. The US basically said, “We will open the line of communication and, if you want to get your people out, get your people out”. That was it. It was not a NATO mission.

There is also this element of reality, when you assess what all of these taskforces and frameworks do and what they are supposed to do. Then, when the situation happens directly in front, it is national missions or two nations just joining together and doing them. It is quite difficult, from an EU perspective, to get that real USP going forward in terms of what their primary role should be.

Q25            Ian Roome: Ms van Rij, the EU Commissioner for Defence has promised a defence White Paper, hopefully to be published in March this year. What is your understanding of what might come out of that White Paper?

Armida van Rij: Again, defence is at the moment a national competency, so we are expecting proposals more about the European defence industrial base. There was a very good European Parliamentary Research Service paper on this, talking about what we might expect. Taking from that, it is really focusing on defence sector capabilities, capability issues, addressing industrial competitiveness, looking at investment needs across the EU.

There is a bit of concern among some of the smaller European member states that, because the defence industries are quite strong in the bigger EU member states, they do not want to end up with a scenario where you have Slovakia essentially supporting through its taxpayers’ money the French defence industry, the German defence industry or the Swedish defence industry. The paper will seek to address some of those concerns.

We are also expecting a lot of thinking in terms of framing, about how to strengthen the EU’s ability to respond to threats. Some specific initiatives that might be included are things like a single market for defence services, which we have seen mentioned a few times, more co-operation with the European Investment Bank on defence and dual use technologies, which von der Leyen has talked about a few times, identifying and addressing some of the most urgent capability gaps and, again, how to ensure that does not overlap with the NATO planning process, et cetera. There might also be proposals for reducing excessive dependencies on third countries.

There is increasing focus on a European air shield. I am not the best placed person to talk about that, but we might see some proposals about that.

Those are just a few things, the shiny objects, that are being talked about a lot at the moment. Of course, we will have to see what the actual, final paper entails and includes. The most important factor will be ensuring that it addresses the “how” question. I do not need to tell you that, but that will be the most important piece because, otherwise, this is just another document.

Q26            Ian Roome: Ed, you mentioned Finland a lot in your earlier answers. Are you aware of the report that was published at the end of last year by the former Finnish President? Hopefully he is feeding some recommendations into that White Paper. What is your understanding specifically around some of the recommendations coming out of that report?

Ed Arnold: I agree with Armida in terms of the expectations of the White Paper. It needs to also look at reform to the current systems. Like I said, within European security we always seem to add process, rather than stripping out process to make things far more streamlined. That is ultimately the challenge that that paper has to address. You can potentially bring huge financial resources to bear, but then it does not quite match the output. That linkage can be much stronger. You are always going to get wastage in defence. It is just the nature of the business, but the change should be in really trying to push that along.

In terms of Finland as an example, it is more of a mindset shift. Von der Leyen recognised this around 2001, where she lamented the usability to act and addressed that head on. That is why “act” is the first part of the strategic compass.

Looking at Finland, it relates to that point I made earlier of inputs and outputs. Finland has the same population as Scotland but, in wartime, it can draw on 284,000 personnel. It has a sixth of the defence budget that the UK has and actually spends per capita less on troops and personnel than we do. Within two years, it is going to have 64 F-35A aircraft fully operational, while the UK currently has 37, with the intent to buy 138, despite the fact that the UK is a tier 1 partner. Looking at the Finland case, you always look at the societal resilience element, but they are also doing quite a lot in terms of being able to get kit really quickly without spending huge sums of money on that. That is something that we could all learn from individually and collectively.

Armida van Rij: On the Niinistö piece, it is particularly interesting and striking that we have now had three major reports—the Draghi report, the Letta report and the Niinistö report—that essentially all call, within their respective sectors, for further integration, to be able to address some of the key issues. At the same time, we are just not seeing the political will to actually make that happen. There might be some rhetoric around this, but there is very little actual action. That is also partially being recognised by Niinistö. We hosted him at Chatham House last week. In some cases, his proposals are pushing on a door that is already open. He is reiterating things that are either already happening or are already in the pipeline anyway.

On Finland specifically, Finland is very much the leader in Europe on societal resilience, but there are limits to how much we can extrapolate from the Finnish example and bring to bear on the UK because of very specific circumstances. It has living memory of having land annexed by Russia. It shares a very long border with Russia. It has a fairly small population of 5 million people that is also fairly homogenous. Extrapolating principles from that to a country like the UK, France or Germany, which have far bigger populations that are more heterogeneous, is difficult.

What is interesting that we can learn from them is about some of the institutional set-ups, which could also be beneficial and can more easily be duplicated in other countries. For example, they have their national security secretariat. It is not just members of key Ministries, but also members of key businesses and of civil society who are all part of that. That is just one way and one example of how you start to create a whole-of-society approach to resilience, to foreign policy, to defence.

Q27            Ian Roome: Regarding your earlier comments around the implementation and recommendations that might come out of that White Paper, what do you see as some of the tensions regarding the implementation? We have the strategic defence review here, but this is a lot of member states with many different interests. I noted from one of the reports that it focused on the European defence industrial strategy. I can see tensions there. What is your interpretation of the member states?

Armida van Rij: The challenge going forward is twofold. The key issue is going to be the levels of investment needed both to continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, or whatever the tagline is these days, and to build up a European defence industry and replenish our own stocks without necessarily defaulting to buying off the shelf American, which tends to be the default because it is accessible.

There have been different levels that have been called for. Kubilius, the Defence Commissioner, called for €100 billion investment. Ursula von der Leyen called for €500 billion investment over the next decade. There are varying figures. This means we need significantly more investment. The question is how we do this. There are disagreements among member states over issuing further joint debt. Some are beginning to relent. Denmark, for example, has changed its position and we should not underestimate Denmark as a European defence player.

The mood is starting to move a little bit on that. I have mentioned engaging with the European Investment Bank, which is something that von der Leyen is particularly keen on but, ultimately, the key issue is, if we cannot get the level of investment needed, we are not going to make the progress that has to made. Getting the money is a key issue, particularly in a context where, just like the UK, many EU member states are fiscally and financially constrained.

Q28            Mr Bailey: Brexit has complicated our defence relationships, restricted our access to the EDF and, therefore, undermined our national security. We have to mobilise as a broader Europe in terms of both the industrial base and militarily, and therefore it is critical that we address those challenges that I just posited. Perhaps I was slightly more forthright than your own view, Ms van Rij.

I would like to take you back to PESCO and the EDF, and ask you how open to our reengagement the European Governments and the European Commission are and what this might look like. This really is quite fundamental to addressing our security challenges.

Armida van Rij: For me, the most essentially piece is defence industrial co-operation between the UK and the EU. Anything else, in my view, is a nice-to-have. It is important, but it is a nice-to-have. That is where we can really move the needle. That means being able to plug into various systems.

I will just say a word on this potential UK-EU security pact and perhaps on the wider reset as well. This has come from the UK Government but, at the moment, our European partners are not clear on what the ask is from the UK. The UK Government have to clarify that.

On the security pact specifically, there have been discussions of making this quite wide, including energy, migration and things like that. That is problematic, just because it risks securitising things that should not be securitised but also, from the EU side, it is seen as a way for the UK to sneak in concessions, for example, around energy, that should actually be covered by the TCA. We really need to think about this as having a narrow definition of security.

Again, just thinking about the bigger picture, the external security environment and why we need better defence industrial co-operation, which is why that has to be the focus of it, at the moment it is odd that certain accession countries have more access to the EU than a country like the UK, a former member with all the assets in the defence and security space that it has.

There are quite a few smaller member states pushing for third‑country participation, i.e. including the UK and the US, in various defence initiatives. Some member states are keen to engage the UK on that front and we should not forget that. There are a few constraints, though. One is that the single market will remain sacred for the European Commission. Then, of course, there is also this debate about strategic autonomy, which is largely a France-led debate. That does not mean that only France feels that way. Given that a lot of these EU defence initiatives are about reducing dependencies on third countries, that poses questions on engaging with the UK.

Having said all that, the UK absolutely should conclude an administrative agreement with the EDA and should be able to contribute to the EDA and the EDF in that way. Again, the UK would not be an outlier in doing so. Norway, Ukraine, the US and Switzerland already have such agreements. It is not like the UK would be breaking out of the mould.

The final consideration is just to say that the UK’s red lines, when it comes to not rejoining the single market and the customs union, have a direct impact on what collaboration is possible with the EU in the defence and security space. That is one of those that has to be thought through quite carefully. If those are the UK’s red lines, that is fine, but it does have a direct impact on how much can actually be achieved. I will leave it there. Something else might come to mind, but I will leave it there for now.

Ed Arnold: On PESCO, because it is an interesting example, I am not entirely sure what value the UK would get out of a lot of those PESCO projects. There was the opportunity for the EU post the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to probably reduce them by well over a half. PESCO is the right option, because the EU has always struggled to do top-down defence and security initiatives. PESCO was different in being a bottom-up initiative, but the execution was poor. It proliferated to about 62 open projects I think.

When you get the reviews of these things, some of them are just not viable. The user requirements have changed. They are sometimes given to member states because they want to lead something. PESCO should have probably been about five projects initially. It was very clear what the EU lacked, because it was what it had to borrow from the US to operate in Africa in terms of air-to-air refuelling, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and strategic lift. I am a bit sceptical of the value the UK could get out of PESCO as a whole, although there are a couple of initiatives within that that the UK might benefit from.

There are other options. There is OCCAR, the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation, in Europe. That is a subset, effectively, of the EDA, not an EU construct, but it is with very serious defence and security actors, principally within the defence industry. A lot of our joint capabilities that we have developed with Europeans have come from OCCAR. It is treaty-based. We are a leading member, a founding member, of it. That is another option.

While I agree that, on certain things, the UK might want to plug into EDA, PESCO, EDF, at the moment, particularly in a transition period, the UK would get far more value out of OCCAR. On the operations side, not the industry side, in terms of third‑party participation in CSDP, it is important to note that, even as a founding member of what was then ESDP, we did not use the mechanism that often as the UK. Again, I am not too sure on the suggestion that this would deliver great value and benefit to the UK.

That said, we do not know what is going to happen in the future. In terms of the ability to then use those mechanisms in the future, it is better to have an agreement that you trust for that to happen. I would give a word of caution and realism about what the UK can expect to actually get in terms of value out of UK-EU security structures.

Armida van Rij: I would just add to that. Where it does add value is that it helps ensure that UK priorities are understood. It is a useful mechanism for doing that and also it is not legally binding. Any parts of the project that the UK is not interested in, it does not have to join. I would just offer a word of caution on that.

The member has left, unfortunately, but your opening point reminded me of something. I am not across the detail on this, but where the UK leaving the EU has had a big impact is specifically on policing operations, access to the European arrest warrant and other kinds of databases. That has a direct impact on security. A lot more could be said on that. I am not the best person to ask, but I do just want to put that on the record as well. 

Q29            Mr Bailey: Thank you. You have covered an awful lot of ground in your answers, especially about the EDF, and I note most of the restrictions that we are suffering are restrictions that the UK itself wrote. You may wish to comment on that. Are there specific areas where access to the EDF could benefit us?

There are interesting challenges with, for example, satellite communications, where the UK is the leading provider of some of those services. Those services are delivered across Europe through pan-European security arrangements or industrial arrangements. Is the current arrangement blocking our ability to progress some of those agreements?

Armida van Rij: Part of the challenge at the moment is, of course, the UK’s disagreements with Spain over Gibraltar, which has slowed down being able to sign an administrative agreement. That is a complicated thing but I am positive that that will be overcome at some point.

This is why this is so important. The UK has significant defence industries, with significant expertise. Being able to collaborate on those joint capability developments is essential. Some of the issues are around, at the same time, the EU’s restrictions on what can be export licences, intellectual property rights and things like that. There is a bit of an element of, “That is just how it is”. To be able to get the greater cumulative benefit, that just has to be accepted in the same way that other third countries have been willing to accept those constraints.

Chair: The final segment that we want to go on to is gaps in European defence capabilities and, in particular, NATO’s capability targets.

Q30            Lincoln Jopp: You both talked about capability gaps, in particular in answer to Ian’s question about the White Paper and not duplicating NATO’s work in terms of capability gaps. Ed, in terms of the specific, hard-end capabilities that had to be borrowed from the Americans, you alighted on some of them.

When I ask the question, “Where are the biggest capability gaps in European defence?” it is quite tempting to focus in on hard bits of kit, if you like. In both of your answers, I noted that there are a number of softer aspects of capability, such as money, agility, will, trust, legal parameters and industrial capacity, which all go into it. They seem to be in fairly short supply in certain instances.

Could I get your take on where the capability gaps are, in terms of both the hard bits of kit and capability, and some of the supporting elements there too?

Ed Arnold: You are absolutely right. We should not just focus on those heavy metal aspects. The issue, for a number of years, is not just what we refer to as the peace dividend. It is also the fact that a lot of European nations were spending on the wrong type of equipment for the wrong type of operations, which we had quite an enthusiasm for, particularly after September 11, and we are now course correcting.

All of those issues about will, leadership and trust that you mentioned are in short supply. It was not 2022 when Europe woke up to this and started to move back to defence and deterrence. It was 2014, when you look particularly at defence spending, that that started. Within the UK as well, the then chief of the defence staff I think at the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy admitted that Afghanistan had bent the Army out of shape and it needed to change. Within the strategic defence and security review 2015 Joint Force 2025 was for a full sovereign warfighting division, so that should be ready this year, with naval enablers. It is probably going to be after 2030 on current estimations.

It is very slow to pivot back to defence and deterrence, and that is because of an overreliance on the US. One of the founding principles of the NATO defence planning process is that you never want to rely on anyone for more than 50% of a key capability but, in terms of the US, in terms of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and especially things that can operate in the north, in the cold, we are wholly reliant on the US. Those are exactly the types of capabilities that are likely to shift over towards the Indo-Pacific.

Also, it is not just about those individual items in terms of heavy metal. It is about getting them east to west, west to east. After the invasion in 2022 in Ukraine, that was one thing that was particularly highlighted. I remember a couple of US officials coming through London and discussing the war, and they were very annoyed at the Europeans. It was not just a French example, but they were particularly annoyed at the fact that the US could move equipment from mainland US into Europe and Ukraine more quickly than the French could get equipment into Ukraine. It was also that they volunteered to create the EFP, now forward land forces, in Romania under the very high readiness joint taskforce and deployed, and it took months even to get their command and control arrangements there. It was very slow.

That is one of the real issues for the Europeans, despite the fact of the geographies. There are elements about the EU’s PESCO military mobility project. There are lots of other national, bilateral and trilateral agreements, but those logistics, the ability to move things to where they are needed, to pre-position stocks out of Russian range, to get them to the frontline, are something that the Europeans have just not invested in at all. If you pull the US enablers in terms of logistics away, the Europeans are really going to struggle with that.

Armida van Rij: To add to that, you put your finger exactly on where it hurts. The real issue is leadership. Yes, the US provides key capabilities, but the US also provides leadership in NATO. Because it is so overpowering in some ways, it is difficult for any European NATO ally really to replicate that or to replace that. Germany and France are in political turmoil at the moment. Germany does not really have that strategic culture to be able to do that. France has its own internal issues.

The UK could do it but, if we think about the capabilities the UK has, it is really more of an expeditionary force at this point. There is no back-up coming. There is no cavalry, which limits its ability. We talk a lot about Poland, in part because of its defence spending, but a lot of its capabilities will only arrive in the next few years or so. Also, is Poland able to fill that leadership role? Is it taken seriously enough by some of the other NATO member states? It should be. I do not know whether it is. This leadership and strategic culture issue is really important.

There are a few things that tie us into the conversation we have been having in terms of key strategic enablers, which are gaps at the moment. One of them is mobility, as Ed was saying, and this is why the PESCO project is important, because that is one about military mobility. That is significant.

Other key gaps are ISR, air and missile defence, which we know, and ammunition. The EU is trying to address this, but it missed its initial ammunition target for Ukraine. It is trying to ramp it up and it will make it up more than it otherwise would have, but still. The other thing is investment in infrastructure. Germany is a good example of this. It has not invested in infrastructure in ages, which means that there are too many bridges that cannot support tanks riding over them. That is an issue, if we are talking about getting forces from west to east.

All of that does not paint a very rosy picture. I am conscious of that, but it is something that we are going to have to reckon with within NATO, certainly, but also within the EU, because the US is going to be increasingly focused on the Indo-Pacific. There is bipartisan support for this. We cannot rely on the US always being there. That is a separate issue from the nuclear umbrella, which, for now, looks pretty stable but, ultimately, if we are talking about the security and defence of our continent, we as Europeans need to be able to carry that. At the moment, we cannot. We are in no position to.

Q31            Lincoln Jopp: It is always tricky, when looking at burden sharing, because it does rely on trust. As ever, as you said, it always ends up being a couple of nations, when it is hitting the fan, that say, “You and me, brother, we are going to go and do this together”. If there were a couple of areas where the UK could really offer to fill capability gaps, specialist capability that is of value to the Europeans in terms of European defence, what would those areas be?

Armida van Rij: Ed is better placed to comment on that, but I will just say that, as you have mentioned trust a couple of times now, that is absolutely essential. Equally, that is eroding pretty quickly at the moment, in part because of who is back in the White House, but also within the European allies. It is difficult. Hungary is part of that discussion but not the only part.

We are seeing instead coalitions of the willing. We can debate about whether that is sustainable or good for alliance cohesion in the long term but, in the short term, it is better than nothing. There are already various coalitions of the willing formats within NATO, NB8[1] being one of them. We are really seeing this gain momentum in terms of how we support Ukraine and how we think about operationalising some of this. I will let Ed comment on the UK contributions.

Ed Arnold: Front and centre has to be the nuclear deterrent—that the UK assigns its nuclear forces to NATO, unlike France. It is going to be more important going forward, as European security deteriorates and complicates decision-making parameters, looking at this from the Kremlin point of view. It also gives a lot of confidence to those nations that are currently worried about potential US security commitments.

The UK does not make enough of that within NATO. The UK should probably just start every meeting that it is at by explaining that, because the nuclear enterprise is almost 40% of what we spend on defence and we never mention it in NATO. It is almost because we do that in terms of nuclear planning group and that is done in a separate part of NATO. It is seen as a value-add when, actually, it is of fundamental value.

Back to Armida’s question in terms of that US leadership, it will wane in a variety of ways. The Europeans do need to step up in terms of the 360‑degree approach that was signed off at the NATO Warsaw summit in 2016, which is that, thematically and geographically, everyone should be able to do everything around it. It just does not work. It meets the political logic of NATO, not the military logic, so much so that you had Italian troops exercising up in the High North, taking three months to deploy, four months to recover. There was not much military value, but it kind of shows something to Norway.

People do not like the idea of NATO regionalisation, because they think it might break up but, actually, an enhanced regionalisation, which was in the original strategic concept in terms of five regional planning groups, will keep NATO together in as close to its current form as possible. That is where the UK can absolutely provide, in terms of leading, galvanising and capabilities.

Operating in the High North, potentially in the Arctic as well, is something that the UK can do and it is also what those nations want us to do. We are a little bit too sensitive to wanting to operate in those areas, bearing in mind the Arctic Council does not do hard security. You see that, when the Foreign Office talk about the Arctic, there is an Arctic policy framework but, within the MOD, it is all about the High North.

That is something that the UK has naturally revolved to over the last decade and it is where we should focus our efforts, to the point that we actually cannot do much else in other areas in Europe. It is just a matter of fact. Operating in the Arctic, the environment will kill you before you see the enemy. That is very different to operating, for example, in the Mediterranean or even in some areas within the east. Go back to aggressive specialisation in terms of kit and capability. That is where the UK should probably focus.

Lincoln Jopp: I am reminded that, at the end of the Cold War, when it really mattered, the only common kit and equipment across NATO was diesel and 105 mm ammunition. Even that did not galvanise us to get our act together and be particularly interoperable.

Armida van Rij: I just want to add that, on the nuclear deterrent piece, I agree, but that does mean that the nuclear deterrent has to be maintained and supported, so it can actually be a deterrent. At the moment, there are questions over that, certainly in the UK context.

Lincoln Jopp: We had better not go into that.

Chair: Thank you very much. That has been a very useful and thought‑provoking evidence session. My gratitude to your good self, Armida van Rij, as well as Ed Arnold, for your thoughts today, which will help to ensure that our inquiry into the UK contribution to European security has been significantly strengthened. Thank you very much.