Europe’s Security and Defence In a New Era

From a defence policy perspective, Europe faces several challenges: capability gaps, the US pivot from Europe to Asia, defence budget cuts and defence reforms. What makes the situation particularly difficult is that these challenging developments take place at the same time, therefore possibly increasing their impact. Without doubt these challenges will put the transatlantic relationship, the EU and NATO to the test. Today, the EU is often described as an organization that has ground to a halt and NATO as an organisation with an uncertain future after Afghanistan. In this report the authors analyses what impact the defence budget cuts and the defence reforms in Europe as well as the US pivot might have on the transatlantic relationship and on Europe's role on the international stage. The authors conclude that nothing implies that European defence budgets will increase in order to fill capability gaps. Moreover, even though the US pivot might not change the issue of collective defence in Europe it will put pressure on Europe to assume greater responsibility for international crisis management. Hence, Europe will have to do more with less.