Nearly a dozen EU member states turned to the European Commission in a joint letter at the end of last month to warn against excessive bureaucracy and overregulation at the EU level that harm military readiness, demanding that it review and address any “legal obstacles” in an upcoming deregulation directive.
The letter, addressed to Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius and obtained by Euractiv, stresses that current rules—even in non-defense related fields, such as environmental and procurement legislation—pose a “direct obstacle” to operational readiness, and therefore jeopardize the security of Europe.
The letter was signed by the defense ministers of Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Czechia, Romania, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the three Baltic states.
The officials noted that the so-called ‘Defense Omnibus Simplification’ package, set to be unveiled this month, is already expected to “do a lot” in order to cut unnecessary red tape, but further legal analysis is needed into how existing and future legislation in various fields can hurt military readiness at the individual member state level.
Furthermore, the letter cites EU treaties, which state that EU legislation shall “not prevent member states’ armed forces from carrying out necessary activities to become operationally ready.” “But right now, it does,” the ministers said, primarily in the areas of procurement legislation, nature conservation, and environmental protection, on top of the general administrative burden that no potential enemy country has to conform.
Attracting more private capital into the defense sector will be one of the primary goals of the Omnibus package, which is expected to revise the ESG—Environment, Social, and Governance—criteria for defense companies. The letter clearly advocates for a major, rather than minor, shift in this regard, suggesting that Brussels forget sustainability if military readiness is on the line.
Failing to address these concerns could have catastrophic consequences, should the war in Ukraine escalate into a wider continental conflict, the defense ministers warned.
“As rightly stated by [von der Leyen], ‘this is not business as usual,” they said. “Making the EU legal framework fit for this time, horizontally and especially in non-Defense specific areas, is a crucial piece of the readiness puzzle.”
