Defence Capabilities Dialogues

Scaling up the engagement between public institutions and the private sector to ramp up Europe’s defence and security capability.

The existential threat to Europe’s security is real. The developments in the USA and potential swing to the right in the European elections mean that the public narrative might shift to a protectionist, self-serving one, putting ‘me’ and ‘I’ first. Supporting Ukraine or not is the new fault line on whether a common approach to EU security and defence thrives or withers away.

As European Commissioner Thierry Breton stated at a recent Friends of Europe event: ‘What is more important than defence today? It’s not only strategic it’s mandatory. We have now, I believe a very urgent need to make sure that we will increase our defence production capacity to cope with the situation. My mission is to make sure the industry will be able to support this ambition.’

As part of our well-established programme on Peace, Security and Defence, Friends of Europe is launching the Defence Capabilities Dialogues to respond to the new policy reality and help to foster productive debate on how to scale up the engagement between public institutions and the private sector to ramp up Europe’s defence and security capability.

This initiative will aim to boost the discussion and reframe the narrative on defence and defence-related issues by providing a neutral discussion platform for current and former political leaders, NATO/EU officials, diplomats, academics, experts from NGOs and think-tanks, as well as representatives of the defence industry.

The initiative sits within the wider framework of Friends of Europe’s Ukraine Initiative, and will be under the leadership of Friends of Europe Trustees, Dalia Grybauskaitė, former President of Lithuania; Michael C. Ryan, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for European and NATO policy, and our Senior Fellow for Peace, Security and Defence Jamie Shea, former Deputy Assistant Secretary General NATO.