Forging a Green Shield


Publisher: International Politics and Society

Author(s): Louise van Schaik

Date: 2024

Topics: Economic Recovery, Weapons, Waste, and Pollution

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The EU institutions are working hard to come up with new communications on the upcoming European Defence Industrial Strategy and a 2040 emission reduction target, just before EU politicians head into elections in June. While innovations in the defence industry could play a pivotal role in the EU’s overall decarbonisation efforts, significantly reducing the Union’s dependency on foreign fossil fuels and helping yield military gains, the two aspects have so far hardly been connected. Instead, the EU’s defence investment gap analysis of 2022, which paved the way for the Defence Industrial Strategy, makes no mention of the opportunities of linking the defence industry to the EU’s green industrial policies.