European Defence is in a new and formative phase in which the European Union’s long list of defence acronyms has steadily grown. One of the most noticeable new policy initiatives is the European Commission’s European Defence Fund (EDF). This article consequently investigates and outlines the establishment of the European Defence Fund and the European Commission’s new role within the field of security and defence through the lens of revised neofunctionalism. This article thus asks how and through what steps did the EDF come about; and secondly how can neofunctionalism explain the dynamics involved in the establishment of the European Defence Fund. The analysis uses a process-tracing method and draws on interviews with relevant policymakers and officials in Brussels as well as official EU documents. The conclusions argue that the ever-increasing involvement of the European Commission in a policy field close to national sovereignty is starting to blur the traditional dichotomy between intergovernmental and supranational decision-making. In this way, this study contributes to the growing literature on the weakening of intergovernmentalism within the EU security and defence policy field.

This article retraces and reconstructs the process of developing and launching the European Union’s Military Mobility project. Situated in the agenda-setting and policy-transfer literature, this article explicates the establishment and implementation of the Military Mobility project and helps to explain the entire policy and development process around the Military Mobility initiative to date. By drawing on process tracing, this article methodologically unpacks the process surrounding this policy development at the EU level. The results show that the European Commission has expanded its competences within the defence field by purposefully and politically acting upon the worsened security situation in and around Europe, while actively building coalitions and managing good working relations with the actors involved in the project. Moreover, the findings show that the EU services have learned from NATO in the defence domain. Thus, this analysis contributes to a greater understanding of the new role of the European Commission in the field of EU security and defence policy. 

The European Commission has traditionally held a weak position in the policy domain of EU security and defence policy and has been seen as a ‘least likely’ case of supranational integration. Nevertheless, in recent years, the Commission has steadily expanded its role and ambition within this policy field – a process which gained in momentum after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Thus, this article investigates how the war in Ukraine has led to the establishment of new security and defence initiatives and to a stronger geopolitical role for the Commission. This paper theorises that the war in Ukraine is serving as an engine of integration. The article traces how the Commission seizes the windows of opportunity created by crises to strategically expand its mandate on security and defence policy and in the development of the sanctions policy regime.