4.

Acknowledging the need for the pMS to substantially improve the fulfilment of all the more binding commitments by 2025, the Council further underlines that the pMS: (a) continued to increase their defence expenditure throughout the first PESCO initial phase (2018-2020), and indicated plans for further increases in the 2021-2025 period despite the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 crisis. With a view to strengthening the capabilities of the pMS and thus making the Union more able to act, that positive trend should be maintained in the future, including by dedicating resources to collaborative defence capability development projects, with a specific effort needed in the area of research and technology, in order to achieve the objectives set for the second PESCO initial phase, and to increase the overall coherence of the European capability landscape; (b) have made modest progress in the use of Union capability planning and development tools and processes in the national setting, and are encouraged to step up their efforts towards a more systematic and active use thereof in order to overcome the capability shortcomings in a collaborative manner. In this respect, fully implementing the agreed 2020 Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD) recommendations on defence spending, defence planning and defence cooperation will be crucial to preparing jointly new planning horizons beyond the mid-2020s for increased cooperation in capability development; (c) should continue their efforts towards the development of a coherent Union full spectrum force package by 2025, in line with the PESCO notification, that contributes to the fulfilment of the Union’s level of ambition; (d) should significantly enhance their efforts to fulfil the operational commitments and in particular commitment 12, which is considered instrumental in improving the relevance and impact of the Union’s external action, in particular with regard to its operational dimension. Fulfilment of commitment 12 strengthens the Union’s ability to act as a security provider, with partners wherever possible and alone when necessary. Major shortfalls, as reflected in the high impact capability goals (HICGs), continue to affect the availability, deployability and interoperability of pMS forces that are necessary for the implementation of the Union’s level of ambition. Moreover, there is scope for the pMS to step up their contributions, not only to the ongoing common security and defence policy (CSDP) missions and operations but also the EU Battlegroup roster and Rapid Response Databases. In this context, in line with Council Recommendation of 15 November 2021 concerning the sequencing of the fulfilment of the more binding commitments undertaken in the framework of permanent structured cooperation (PESCO) and specifying more precise objectives, and repealing the Recommendation of 15 October 2018 (4), progress indicators should be further discussed and defined by pMS in order to provide a fair share to the respective force generation for CSDP missions and operations, within pMS’ means and capabilities, and to increase transparency among them. In accordance with the single set of forces principle (5), pMS inputs to the Force Catalogue should be in line with the Headline Goal Process instructions and should include all deployable assets (including headquarters and capabilities usable in support of missions and operations); (e) demonstrated progress in fulfilling their commitment to helping overcome capability shortcomings identified under the Capability Development Plan (CDP) and CARD, including an assessment of the implementation of the HICGs, but in the majority pMS continue not to provide indications on whether and how they consider as a priority the use of the European collaborative approach to close national capability gaps. In the same vein, there is still no common understanding among pMS on the impact of capability projects to increase Europe’s strategic autonomy and to strengthen the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB). The efforts undertaken to implement the 2020 CARD recommendations and to take forward the identified opportunities for cooperation, in particular to develop implementation roadmaps for the proposed six focus areas, should contribute to improving that understanding. The Council recalled that coherence of output between the CDP and CARD, on the one hand, and respective NATO processes such as the NATO Defence Planning Process, on the other hand, has been and will continue to be ensured where requirements overlap, while recognising the different nature of the two organisations and their respective responsibilities and memberships; (f) still need to further improve the provision of information as regards the more binding commitments and the relevant more precise objectives that relate to their industrial policies and procurement strategies. They should enhance efforts to go beyond the current level of addressing the commitments, by providing plans with clear indications that their projects derived from their industrial policies and acquisition strategies contribute to making the European defence industry more competitive and have a positive impact on the EDTIB, including by promoting the cross-border participation of small and medium-sized enterprises and Mid-Caps throughout the Union.