The new role of the European Commission in European Security and Defence Cooperation – theoretical and empirical implications for European integration

Since the launch of the 2016 EU Global Strategy the European Union has taken a qualitative and quantitative leap within its security and defence policy cooperation. However, studies on EU Security and Defence Cooperation have thus far mainly revolved around the intergovernmental characteristics of the policy field (see e.g., Bergmann and Muller, 2021) and what traditionally is missing from the literature are studies on the role of supranational institutions in this field (with some exceptions, see e.g., Bergmann, 2019; Haroche, 2020; Riddervold, 2016; Riddervold and Trondal 2020; Strikwerda, 2019;; Lecallée, 2011; Oliveira Martins and Mawdsley 2021; Blauberger and Weiss, 2013; Edler and James, 2015; Håkansson 2021). This is not surprising since the European Commission has traditionally been in a weak position due to the strong reluctance of EU member states to empower a supranational institution in a policy field of ‘high politics’ that is so close to ‘national sovereignty’ (cf. Hoffmann, 1964; Menon, 2013). However, with both the newly established European Defence Fund and the EU Military Mobility project the European Commission’s role is both enhanced and transformed within this field. Moreover, in her 2021 State of the European Union address President von der Leyen once again echoed the ambition to build a European Defence Union by 2025. Hence this paper seeks to discuss and analyse what this new role and ambition from the European Commission have for empirical and theoretical implications for European integration and especially the literature on the grand theories of European integration.