CESI’s 6th European Defence Round Table (EDRT)*

27 March 2023 1:30 PM | online & in Berlin | In English & German languages

One year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine the global security and foreign affairs climate shifted towards fighting the consequences of the war and its deterrence regime inflicted on all policies, from defence to energy and inflation.

The 6th proposed European defence round table aims to assess what changes 2022 brought to the European Defence Union: to take stock of the constructive steps forward taken by EU and national actors through the adoption of the Strategic Compass, by reiterating and enlarging the EU-NATO partnerships, advancing on the PESCO projects for developing the European defence industry and by making the European Rapid Deployment Capacity a reality.

In this context it is important to understand what are the implications of all these developments for the general European public with a special focus on the working conditions of soldiers.

CESI invites experts, policy makers, representatives of the personnel of armed forces and interested shareholders and stakeholders in Europe to reflect and exchange on the following questions:

· How is the war in Ukraine still impacting the European efforts to achieve a genuine, operational European Defence Union?

· What are the implications of developing the European Union Assistance Mission Ukraine (EUMAM) and the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity for the soldiers? What lessons could we draw from this in terms of personnel, training, equipment?

· What reasonable predictions for the EU security and foreign affairs policies could be made for the short and medium term?

With the participation of (in alphabetical order) :

· Sebastian Clapp, Defence Analyst at the European Parliament Research Service

· Klaus Heeger, Secretary General, CESI

· Mary Kaldor, Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics

· MEP Lukas Mandl, Vice-chair of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs and substitute in the Subcommittee on Security and Defence

· Christian Moos, German Civil Servants Association (dbb) and member of the European Economic and Social Committee

· Thomas Sohst, German Armed Forces Association (DBwV), President of CESI´s Commission ‘Defence’

· André Wüstner, German Armed Forces Association (DBwV) Federal Chairman

*CESI’s European Defence Round Table (EDRT) aims at including more key players and stakeholders in the processes of the Common Security and Defence Policy.