Russian Roulette: Why Macron raised the stakes on Ukraine

"Europe’s defence industrial base shrank after the Cold War and is fragmented along national lines," writes Luigi Scazzieri, a senior research fellow, in a paper for the Centre for European Reform (CER).

He says: "It is structured to produce in relatively low volumes and has struggled to increase its output. Lack of certainty over the trajectory of defence budgets and future orders also makes many companies unwilling to make costly investments in expanding their production capacity.

"The continuing lack of coordination between member-states in investing their defence budgets is making it difficult to generate economies of scale and has given rise to competing orders."