EU countries should suggest flagship European defence projects -Commission draft paper

By Andrew Gray

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission will invite EU countries to swiftly agree on their most pressing defence needs with a view to launching "large-scale pan-European flagship projects", according to a draft white paper seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The white paper on the future of European defence, due to be published next week, is the latest in a series of steps intended to enable Europe to rapidly boost its defences due to fears of a Russian attack and doubts about the future of U.S. protection.

The draft paper says the EU is facing an "unprecedented security threat since conventional war returned to Europe in February 2022" with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It also says that "Europe cannot take the US security guarantee for granted and must substantially step up its contribution" to maintain the strength of NATO, the transatlantic security alliance.

The paper recaps and expands upon proposals by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week to make it easier for European countries to quickly ramp up defence spending, which EU leaders endorsed at a summit.

It identifies areas where Europe has "capability gaps" such as air and missile defence, artillery, ammunition and missiles, drones, military transport, artificial intelligence, cyber warfare and infrastructure protection.

"There is a strong case for closing these capability gaps in a collaborative manner," the draft paper says.

It says this will "require the development of pan-European flagship projects" as the "scale, cost and complexity of most projects in these areas go beyond Member States' individual capacity".

The text said it was up to member states to decide which projects to launch to tackle the most urgent and critical needs.

The paper also says the Commission will propose to deepen the European single market for defence, "notably through greater clarity on procurement and regulatory simplification and harmonisation".

It says the European Union should consider introducing European preference into public procurement for strategic defence-linked sectors.

(Additional reporting by Lili Bayer, Writing by Andrew Gray and Benoit Van Overstraeten)