UK's tortured approach to EU defence takes new twist

"The irony is that the EU is getting serious about defence just as the UK is leaving,” says Sophia Besch, a defence expert at the Centre for European Reform. The UK’s partnership paper on defence, which set out the May government’s position on future EU-UK relations, published last autumn, was received “with glee in Brussels because it was so supportive,” Besch told EURACTIV.

...“The key word is ‘project-based involvement’,” said Besch.

“That means for PESCO and the EDA, what it needs is an administrative arrangement with the EDA and a similar arrangement with the Commission that allows it to down a kind of ‘pay for play’ deal for certain projects,” she added.

...“In the defence field, we have lots of agencies involved and the difficulty for the UK is that the EU hasn’t come up with the third party arrangements,” said Besch.

“The EU would ideally use the Brexit process to reform its third country arrangements…they currently make it very hard for other countries to participate in missions.”

...“Ideally the UK will be able to opt-in to what they like, the only issue is going to be money,” says Besch. “Unlike trade, it’s not zero-sum. There is an outcome where both sides win.”