European defence needs a joint approach

As Tomas Valasek, director of foreign policy and defence at London-based think-tank the Centre for European Reform, puts it in a recent paper, Surviving Austerity: The case for a new approach to EU military collaboration, a "wave of budgetary austerity" is eroding European nations' defences, and their armed forces "will lose important skills and capabilities unless they can find ways to save money through collaboration". Critically, says Valasek, European Union leaders must encourage various groups of compatible member states to work together in what he calls military "islands of co-operation".