With ambitious steps in this decade, the new compass is expected to help improve the capacity and strategic autonomy of the ‘Blue Flag Alliance” amidst the complicated situation throughout the world.
The strategy was adopted during a joint session of the Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs in Brussels, Belgium on March 21. After the meeting, EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy High Representative Josep Borrell emphasised that the new strategy sets out an ambitious way forward for the EU’s security and defence policy implementation. It also helps EU members face their security responsibilities.
The strategy aims to make the EU a stronger and more capable security provider, thereby reinforcing and enhancing its strategic autonomy and ability to work with partners to safeguard its values and interests. The strategy provides a common assessment of the strategic environment as well as the threats and challenges that the union faces over the next decade. The document makes concrete and actionable proposals, with a very precise timetable for implementation, to improve the EU's ability to act decisively in crises and protect its security and citizens.
The prominent and immediate plan is to establish a new military force of the union and increase military expenditures. The ambitious strategy was tabled in November, with the name Strategic Compass. Accordingly, the EU will form a new rapid reaction force comprising up to 5,000 troops operating on land, at sea and in the air. Formed based on the EU battlegroups that have existed since 2007, the new rapid reaction force is capable of carrying out the intervention, rescue and evacuation of Europeans from conflicts.
The ultimate goal of the EU’s rapid reaction force is to be ready for operation whenever and wherever, as the crises occur both inside and outside the bloc. The force is based on the request of EU leaders without relying on NATO and the US. The EU’s joint military force is expected to be fully operational in 2025, but the bloc has been planning a series of preparatory activities, firstly launching military exercises this year.
Strategic autonomy is the primary concern of the EU. The EU leaders shared the view that the current challenging strategic context poses an urgent task for the bloc to improve its ability to respond to risks and threats while enhancing its capacity to quickly respond to crises. The above needs are more urgent when viewed from the inadequacies in NATO or the problems within the EU-US relations, especially following the US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan without consulting its European allies. Therefore, with “Strategic Compass”, the EU sets out the highest aim of improving its autonomy in a faster, stronger and more flexible manner, so that it can carry out its responsibility to ensure security and manage crises without relying on its ally across the Atlantic.
The need is real and urgent, but the EU's strategic ambitions are not fully supported. The EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy High Representative has repeatedly affirmed that the EU's independent forces are not in conflict but rather can complement NATO's common capacity. However, NATO leaders have repeatedly reminded that it is time to reinforce and enhance the common defence capacity, not build a separate military force that can reduce the role of the transatlantic military alliance.
