Judy Asks: Is Defense a Priority Across Europe?

Pol Morillas, director of the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, answers Judy Dempsey’s question in her blog Strategic Europe: Is Defense a Priority Across Europe? “We might soon witness the beginning of a new reactionary wave. 2024 shall represent what Brexit and the election of Donald Trump did in 2016: the first steps toward the rise of Euroskepticism, a global nativist alliance and the questioning of multilateralism”, explains Morillas, adding that “unfortunately, a core building block of security—defense—is still a lesson for Europe to learn. Not individually, thanks to increased defense expenditure in member states, but collectively and through an integrated approach in the EU”. According to Morillas, “the task will be more urgent than ever, and then we shall acknowledge that the language of strategic autonomy should never have vanished”.