PeSCo: The Swedish Perspective

The Swedish position on the Permanent Structured Cooperation in the European Union in the area of defence and security (PeSCo) reflects a keen interest in maintaining European unity as a means of ensuring Sweden’s national security. The inclusiveness that characterises PeSCo today finds political support in Sweden, which sees enhanced European cooperation on defence as a means to counteract centrifugal forces in the EU – but with an emphasis on keeping cooperation strictly intergovernmental. The Swedish choice of PeSCo projects is, in turn, guided by the need to allocate resources effectively to the strengthening of national military capabilities. Swedish interests in PeSCo are shaped primarily by the priority attributed to its territorial defence, where military mobility and the defence materiel development are of primary importance. The continuation of Sweden’s military engagement in EU crisis management operations is, at the same time, reflected in two out of four PeSCo projects that Sweden has chosen to participate in: the European Training Missions Competence Centre and the European Medical Command. A core Swedish interest regarding the further development of PeSCo and specifically the European Defence Fund (EDF) and European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP), is that they ensure the continuity of the transatlantic defence cooperation and allow the protection of the Swedish industrial partnerships with the UK, USA and Norway. Alongside the transatlantic partnership, France and Germany are becoming more important for Sweden. The extent to which they can become defence partners of choice for Sweden will be determined by the practical added value that both can generate for the Swedish Armed Forces. The German Framework Nations Concept (FNC) and the French European Intervention Initiative (EII) are assessed both in terms of their political expediency in the EU context, and their utility for the Swedish capability development to face any military threats from Russia…