The Strategic Compass for Security and Defence should concretise the EU’s level of ambition as a security provider. In November 2021, a first draft was presented to the member states. It is now up to them to negotiate the final document until March 2022. The need for consensus and long-standing divides could tempt them to either dilute the draft or postpone the more controversial decisions to the implementation phase. With this paper, we seek to counteract these temptations. We identify eight key deliverables, point towards possible implementation challenges and propose ways to address them.
This paper is part of the “Visions for Europe” series, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Finance. Papers within this series develop longer-term visions and recommendations for different EU policy areas and are based on extensive consultation with experts and stakeholders. For this paper, an expert group composed of distinguished European experts was convened in July and September 2021. The paper also draws on insights from interviews with decision-makers from EU institutions and the member states. The views and opinions expressed in this policy paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of every member of the expert group. The list of experts can be found in the annex.