Parallels between the European Union’s approach to its defence policy and to its health policy signify a broader shift moving beyond ad hoc responses toward long-term, collective responses. Approaches to both defence and health policy are driven by preparedness – securing resources, coordinating at the EU level, and reducing external dependencies in the current geopolitical context. Just as joint vaccine procurement ensured resilience in the health sector, defense and security policy now focuses on shared stockpiling and strategic common investments.
Not only are the approaches similar, but lines between the two policy areas have become blurred. health policies cannot be seen separately from the EU’s security paradigm. Five years after the global pandemic first transformed our lives, And how can lessons learned from the EU’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic inform its response to the growing defence and security threats in the current geopolitical context of a changing world order and upheaval of multilateralism?
An initial analysis of the parallels between the EU’s pandemic response and recent defence and security initiatives reveals that both reaction mechanisms shaped institutional trends at EU level. It highlights similar developments at national and EU level and offers guidance for the EU to navigate new geopolitical realities, although it is still too early to fully assess the impact on defence and security policy.
Legal power? A complex picture
Health policy and defence and security initiatives are both highly sensitive EU policy areas. And from a legal standpoint, the EU’s power in both fields has been historically limited. In fact, with rare exceptions, health policies fall within the EU’s least binding category of competences, namely parallel competences. The area of defence and security presents an even more complex picture, with Member States retaining primary control. This is made even more complex by the intricate triangular relationship between NATO, EU Member States, and the EU itself, which can result in overlapping responsibilities, political sensitivities, and strategic priorities and challenge coherent policy developments at European level.
Despite these limitations, or because of them, the European Union has developed instruments (both soft power and legislative instruments) that have helped shape long-term solutions, such as the EU’s preparedness strategy (encompassing stockpiling, security of supplies and supply chains), and common debt.
Both health and defence policies have been forged by crises that have necessitated measures and initiatives of far greater scale and complexity than any individual EU Member State could realistically undertake alone. As the EU motto from the pandemic put it, ‘We are “Stronger Together’. The new emphasis on the power of collective action profoundly strengthened Member States’ political will to support EU action in the field of health and led to the EU health budget being dramatically increased. Traditionally resistant to EU intervention in such inherently national and politically sensitive matters, EU Member States saw their long-standing reservations crumble during the crises and they themselves began calling for European answers.
The EU has attempted to bring about a turning point in the health sector without amending the treaties, which was neither feasible nor necessary during the emergency or in its immediate aftermath. Building on Member States’ political will, the EU created the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, a new European Commission Directorate-General. It also significantly strengthened two EU agencies that were at the heart of the COVID response - the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). One preparedness measure that was already in place was the Joint Procurement Act, signed six years before the pandemic. Having this in place for the joint procurement of vaccines allowed the EU to negotiate prices collectively from a position of economic strength, avoiding internal competition. As a result of this joint action at EU level, COVID-19 vaccines were available to all signatory countries in record time.
Preparedness and common debt
Preparedness and stockpiling were critical in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and have become central in the EU debate about defence policies as well. The recently presented “Preparedness Union Strategy,” follows the same course for defence policies adopted by the Union in the COVID crisis. This strategy requires the EU to develop an “Union Prevention, Preparedness and Response Plan” which provides operational provisions to support Member States in the event of a crises.
Moreover, in its 2025 work programme, the Commission groups measures under the heading “A New Era for European Defence and Security,” bringing together initiatives in both the defense sphere (such as the White Paper on Defence and the Union Preparedness Plan) and the health domain (including the Strategy for medical countermeasures and the Critical Medicines Act). The Critical Medicines Act seeks to address the dependence of the EU on other parts of the world for the supply of medicines. According to a letter signed by 11 EU health ministers in March 2025 ahead of the EU Commission proposals for a draft Critical Medicine Act, between 80% and 90% of antibiotics are produced in China and India, which makes the EU “dangerously dependent” on Asia for critical medicines. Furthermore, the health ministers said that it was “imperative” that the EU integrate the Critical Medicine Act into Europe’s broader security framework.
After the most critical phase of the pandemic, the EU sought to translate the emergency measures into lasting reforms, seizing the momentum by extending health competences and increasing the health budget as previously mentioned, within new framework provided by the Health Package. Moreover, in 2021, the EU broke the long-standing taboo of common debt through NextGenerationEU, a significant economic package of 750 billion composed of loans and grants, activated to push European economic recovery after the crisis.
The EU’s White Paper on Defence outlines a coordinated EU response and promotes collective preparedness. It reaffirms the importance of joint procurement of military equipment and common stockpiling, introduces the SAFE loan instrument, and allows Member States to temporarily bypass the Stability and Growth Pact (on the basis of Article 122 TFEU). As with COVID-19, the Commission is also calling for private actors to play a central role, supported by the European Investment Bank, and for the utilization of Cohesion Funds to address the current emergency. Compared to the “new mindset in joint expenditure” advocated by Mario Draghi, however, the ReArmEU package falls short. The €150 billion allocated under SAFE differs from NextGenerationEU in that it will not offer any grants, but consists solely of loans. Still, this development breaks the taboo of common debt, which has now been broken twice in just a few years.
However, some European countries (Italy and The Netherlands, for instance) have already announced that they will not take advantage of the exemption from the Stability Pact – both for reasons of political support and long-term debt sustainability. But what will happen when new defence spending targets are set at the NATO summit in June? At that point, governments will be forced to refinance a sector that has been neglected for too long, and yet another historic taboo – state aid – will likely be broken. It has already been breached in Germany. The former champion of austerity, leveraging its economic strength, has amended its Constitution to approve a €1.5 trillion defense investment plan over ten years. This initiative will have enormous consequences not only for the German market and its industries but also for the EU’s single market.
Lessons learned
Three years after the adoption of the health package and the investments made through NextGenerationEU, lessons learned from the pandemic may help steer the Union’s defence polity. In both areas - defence and health - the Union currently operates on the basis of rather tenuous treaty competences. To overcome this political reality, the Union relied heavily on inter-agency coordination for the health package and gave it a significant injection of liquidity. This was possible because EU Member States recognised the seriousness of the situation and acted with urgency. The many issues related to legal competences and the coordination challenges were ultimately overcome by a convergence of political will. That political will proved to be a crucial factor: it allowed for the pursuit of shared solutions within the framework of the European project.
The need for such convergence is even more pressing in the field of defense and security, where a series of structural factors make joint action all the more essential. Firstly, the perception of the “Russia threat” varies significantly across the Union, influenced by both geographical proximity and the differing political orientations of individual EU Member States. Secondly, the defence industry remains strongly anchored at national level, with a few top players concentrated in only a handful of countries. This is a difficult problem to overcome since it necessitates the development of a European defense industrial strategy that requires both time and funding.
It is clear that a common defense architecture cannot be constructed overnight, especially after decades of underinvestment and dependence on the United States. Yet the pandemic clearly demonstrated that European action in an area of tenuous treaty competences gains both legitimacy and effectiveness when underpinned by political will and financial commitment.
In the immediate term, allowing common debt and strengthening collective preparedness are the only realistic and pragmatic means of rendering rearmament a genuinely European endeavour, rather than merely national one. Here, as in health matters, we are truly ‘Stronger Together’.
Elizabeth Kuiper is the Associate Director & Head of the Social Europe and Well-being Programme at the European Policy Centre.
Michele Migliori is the Visiting Fellow within the Social Europe and Wellbeing programme at the European Policy Centre.
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