The European Defence Agency. Arming Europe

Summary:

This volume provides a comprehensive understanding of the European Defence Agency (EDA), the leading EU armaments policy institution.

Despite its critical role in European strategic and military affairs as the key hub of European policy-making in the field of armaments, the Agency has hitherto received very little attention by the academic and research community around Europe. To fill this gap in the literature, the book covers a multitude of inter-related themes and topics. Not only does it provide a detailed analysis and assessment of the Agency’s record as the first institution dealing solely with EU armaments policy, but it also links these findings to international relations and European integration theory.

Thematically, the contributions go beyond the mere description of achievements, gaps and risks, elaborating on novel themes such as space, offsets, pooling and sharing, and transatlantic armaments relations. The book combines an interdisciplinary approach to the study of European defence with theoretical and ontological pluralism, and seeks to unveil the strategic, industrial, institutional and ideational sources of armaments collaboration and capability development under the aegis of the EDA.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Part I - Theorising the EDA
  • Institutionalist approaches to agency establishment (Helena Ekelund)
  • The EDA and the discursive construction of European defence and security (André Barrinha)
  • Brothers in arms? The European arms industry and the making of the EDA (Iraklis Oikonomou)
• Part II - The EDA in Action
  • EU military capability development and the EDA: ideas, interests and institutions (Alistair J. K. Shepherd)
  • The EDA and armaments collaboration (Katia Vlachos-Dengler)
  • The EDA and the field of research and technology (Anja Dahlmann and Marcel Dickow)
  • The EDA and EU defence procurement integration (Aris Georgopoulos)
• Part III - The EDA, the nation-state and beyond
  • France, the UK and the EDA (Jocelyn Mawdsley)
  • Germany's limited leadership in the EDA: international and domestic constraints on defence cooperation (Tom Dyson)
  • Organisations at war: the EDA, NATO and the European Commission
• Part IV - Broadening the EU armaments policy agenda
  • The EDA and military capability development: making pooling and sharing work (Laura Chappell and Petar Petrov)
  • The EDA and the development of a European Defence Technological and Industrial Base: between nationalisation and globalisation (Marie-Louise Chagnaud and Christian Mölling)
  • The EDA and defence offsets: trailing after the Commission (Peter Platzgummer)
  • The EDA's inroads into space (Frank Slijper)