European Defence Projects of Common Interest: from concept to practice

Executive summary 4

1 Introduction 5

2 Conceptualisation of and experience with European projects of common interest 7

3 Legal foundations for EDPCIs 13

3.1 Selection criteria 15

3.2 Governance and complementarity 17

4 Financing mechanisms for European defence projects 19

5 Four flagship EDPCIs 22

5.1 The European Drone Defence Initiative 23

5.2 The 'Eastern Flank Watch' 25

5.3 The European Air Shield 26

5.4 The European Space Shield 28

6 Further priority areas that would be most suitable as EDPCIs 30

6.1 The 'European Cyber Defence Shield' 31

6.2 The 'European Combat Cloud' 32

6.3 Military Mobility 33

6.4 Concluding remarks and the issue of C2 35

7 Conclusions and recommendations 36

7.1 Recommendations 37

8 Interviews 39

References 40