It was a historic decision. It was the first time to finance lethal aid to partner states. I remember the discussions, that some member states were unwilling because there was no such tradition, and a legal barrier, and a psychological barrier, but it was overcome. And we are positively surprised that the EU managed to transfer itself and show flexibility.
Two senior officials, a Polish national security organisation, October 2023
Introduction
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine shattered Europe’s security order and catalysed major security and defence policy changes both at the national and at the EU level in Europe.Footnote 1 The escalated war was quickly interpreted as a wake-up call for the EU regarding strategic agency, i.e. the ability to formulate common security and defence ends and means to achieve them.Footnote 2 This also re-energised discussion concerning the EU’s and the member states’ strategic cultures, captured in their norms, values, and perceptions regarding security and defence, and the way these constrain and enable joint action. Early on after the full-scale war onset some commentators noted ‘remarkable’ reversals and rapid evolution in Europe’s strategic culture as a response to the war.Footnote 3 The tone has since become more sceptical, however. Experts point to the critical defence deficits and dependencies of Europe and the divergent views regarding the support measures and priorities of the EU.Footnote 4
One concrete EU policy change and instrument that encapsulates these dynamics is the European Peace Facility (EPF). Since the start of the full-scale war, the EU has approved €11.647 billionFootnote 5 of military support to the Ukrainian defence forces, including lethal support, through the 2021 established Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) off-budget tool. The provision of lethal aid to an external partner represents an unprecedented step for the EU, traditionally considered a civilian actor and previously lacking such means.Footnote 6 The former EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy (HR/VP),Footnote 7 Mr Josep Borrell, referred to the use of the EPF in support of Ukraine as breaking of taboos and as a gamechanger for the EU as a security actor. The Council has since adopted decisions on the provision of lethal support also to other partners. Nevertheless, the use of the EPF to support Ukraine has met with increasing difficulties due to (re-)emerged disagreements among the member states.Footnote 8
This article is interested in the extent to which and how the shift in policy regarding the EPF indicates a change in the EU’s strategic agency. This research puzzle is approached from-within the theoretical discussion on (EU) strategic culture. Instead of explaining a political actor’s use of force and other means of managing insecurity solely based on material resources and relative capabilities, strategic culture places attention to the role of ideational factors such as history, identity-derived norms and values, and the discourses and practices that embed them.Footnote 9 In the case of the EU, strategic culture directs us to examine the (shared) norms and traditions that shape what is perceived as legitimate security and defence action for the EU, and the interplay between the discourses and practices that construct and constrain EU strategic agency.Footnote 10
Thus far, studies on the EU’s strategic culture have focused on exploring the strength and nature of EU strategic culture as a whole.Footnote 11 The analysis has centred on the issue of convergence versus divergence of member states’ national strategic cultures and on capturing EU strategic culture in public narratives and EU crisis management action.Footnote 12 While perspectives on the outlook differ, some scholarly consensus can be found on a nascent yet evolving EU strategic culture, characterised by the historical idea of EU as a peace project, a comprehensive and multilateralism-focused approach to foreign and security policy, and evolving security and defence capabilities that are constrained by versatile member states’ perspectives on the role and priorities for the EU.Footnote 13
We build on and contribute to these insights by moving the focus from the strength of EU strategic culture to the mechanisms through which it evolves. Specifically, we leverage recent strategic culture scholarly debates to explore the interplay of exogenous shocks, changes in dominant strategic narratives, and evolving strategic practices in the case of the EPF.Footnote 14 Moreover, we contribute to understanding agency in strategic culture change by shedding light on the EU institutions’ agency and exploring the interplay of member states’ perspectives of the EPF. Empirically, the article analyses the EU institutions’ strategic narratives concerning the EPF before and after the onset of the full-scale war in Ukraine, using Last’s analytical framework of system, identity, and issue plot narratives and exploring how changes in these interact with policy and practice change.Footnote 15 Moreover, to shed light on the interplay between the evolving EU-level discourse on military support and the member states dynamics we draw on novel interview data to analyse four member states’ strategic narratives and policies regarding the EPF in pre- and post-invasion periods.
We first review the relevant literature on European strategic cultures and set the theoretical and analytical framework for the analysis. The analysis then traces the evolution of the EPF from the EU institutions perspective: it identifies a change in the strategic narrative and, to a less clear extent, practice concerning the EPF after the onset of the war. The analysis also points to initiative-making agency of the EU institutions in times of crisis. The second analytical section turns to the member states perspectives with a focus on Germany, Poland, France and Finland. It demonstrates converging systemic narratives among the member states, as well as evolving perceptions regarding the EU as a security actor, even when national divergences concerning the use of the EPF and approach to the EU persist. These findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between EU-level and national dynamics of perceptual lenses, norms, and practices regarding the EU’s strategic agency. The Conclusion discusses the implications of the key findings for the EU’s strategic agency and culture evolution.
EU strategic culture: from a paradox to an evolving discourse and emerging practice?
The extent to which the EU can be considered a strategic actor in foreign and security affairs has been (ir)regularly debated since the late 1990s and the first attempts to formulate the Union’s common security and defence policy. The most sceptical views link strategic agency exclusively to nation states and their fully-fledged military forces, leaving little room for an analysis of an international organisation such as the EU.Footnote 16 Most scholars today, however, adopt a broader view and study the unity, strength, constraints, and motivations of the EU in the field of security and defence.Footnote 17 They approach the strength and evolution of EU strategic agency through analysing whether it ‘(1) has a capacity to formulate common security interests (ends), and (2) may generate relevant capabilities (means) to defend these common interests’.Footnote 18 The scrutiny is on the priorities and objectives (ends of strategy) of the EU and how it uses diverse instruments of power (military and civilian) to achieve those ends.Footnote 19
This brings in the concept of strategic culture and more specifically the idea of a shared EU strategic culture.Footnote 20 Strategic culture can be understood as the historically constructed and identity-derived ideational grounds that enable and constrain a political actor (or community) in formulating security ends and means. The concept dates to the 1970s and Jack L. Snyder’s groundbreaking studyFootnote 21 of Soviet nuclear arms strategy that set the scene to study how socialisation into different organisational and politico-historical contexts shapes strategic choices. Snyder defined strategic culture as ‘the sum total of ideas, conditioned emotional responses and patterns of habitual behaviour that members of a national strategic community have acquired through instruction or imitation and share with each other’.Footnote 22 The concept calls for attention to the historical experiences and identity-shaped norms, values, rules and practices that frame foreign and security policy choices.Footnote 23
By extension, EU strategic culture can be thought of as such common norms, values, and experiences that shape the EU’s management of strategic insecurity.Footnote 24 Studies have marked the EU’s historical ethos as a peace project as well as its comprehensive and multilateralism-focused approach as underlining the EU’s agency.Footnote 25 At the same time, assessments of the strength of shared EU strategic culture have mostly ranged from cautious to highly sceptical. Scholars point to the member states’ divergent strategic cultures regarding the use of military force and approaches to transatlantic security cooperation, for example, attesting that shared strategic culture can at best be found at the level of the lowest common denominators.Footnote 26 The diverging national strategic cultures are understood as among the key impediments of effective EU security and defence action.Footnote 27
Since Snyder’s elaborations, the study of strategic culture has undergone several generations of scholarly debates.Footnote 28 Recently, the so-called fourth generation scholars have directed attention to contestation within strategic cultures, the interplay between discourse and practice in constituting strategic culture, and related mechanisms of change in strategic culture.Footnote 29 Questioning the monolithic and static nature of strategic culture, studies have approached strategic culture as consisting of diverse schemes or sub-cultures with somewhat different interpretations of the world, the actor’s role in it, and the preferred modes of action and that compete over influence in explaining, justifying, and providing answers to strategic needs and questions.Footnote 30
These later iterations of debate have opened space to study dynamics of strategic culture in a more nuanced manner, both in terms of the levels of strategic (sub-)culture as well as regarding strategic culture dynamics in specific issues. These approaches are useful in studying the EU and its inter-governmental and supranational nature that almost by definition invokes the notion of strategic cultural heterogeneity. Johnson and Berrett, for example, posit that the dynamics of competition among strategic sub-cultures may vary across specific situations and issues of interest.Footnote 31 Albeit encultured and socialised within the broader political community, political and military elites, expert communities, and other agents of change may shape strategic culture from-within their strategic sub-cultures and social practices.Footnote 32 Drawing on these approaches, our study builds on three specific notions that provide theoretical and methodological direction for our analysis of the evolving EU strategic agency and the EPF as a case study.
First, whilst diverging national norms related to the use of force certainly matter for joint EU action, shared EU-level strategic culture does not demand a complete convergence of member states’ strategic cultures. As Meyer notes, EU-level strategic agency is better thought of as ‘a separate layer in which there is agreement between the member states concerning what the EU’s interests are, what type of action should be taken in various circumstances and the partners with which the EU should work’.Footnote 33 In other words, what matters is not whether the national strategic cultures converge per se but whether, when, and how convergence takes place in member states’ dominant ideas, norms, and practices regarding the role of the EU.Footnote 34 In this regard and acknowledging the time-variant dynamics of strategic culture competition,Footnote 35 the dynamics of convergence among member states can vary and be studied across specific strategic issues on the EU’s agenda, such as with regard the EPF.
A second theoretical underpinning acknowledges the agency of the EU institutions – alongside the member states – in shaping EU strategic culture. Previous research suggests that EU institutions can act as norms producers and facilitators of change, pushing forward common EU approach and shaping member states’ policies and (strategic) identities in doing so.Footnote 36 Convergence of strategic cultures may come about from-within EU-level supranational norms and practices diffusion rather than solely through the member states.Footnote 37 This alludes to the EU strategic culture being more than the sum of member states’ histories, norms, and practices. Rather, it is also (re)constructed through the socialisation and institutionalisation of a distinctive identity, norms, and practices of the EU.Footnote 38 The role of EU institutions and other agents of change can be particularly influential in times of external shock and increased uncertainty, that challenge the dominant narratives and policy repertoires and open competition for (latent) strategic sub-cultures and their representatives with diverse norms and practices.Footnote 39
Third, strategic culture (change) consists of interplay between strategic discourse and practice.Footnote 40 As a system of statements, discourse refers to the shared social rules of a setting on what, how and by whom something is conceived/talked/acted about. It is the ideational and linguistic vehicle that embeds the dominant norms, values, and beliefs within a strategic culture.Footnote 41 Discourses enable, give meaning to, and justify practices, i.e. socially recognised patterns of behaviour. However, rather than a one-way street from discourse to a set of practices, the latter ultimately define strategic culture and reconstruct and reshape the discursive part.Footnote 42 Practices feed back to dominant beliefs on the appropriateness and purpose of action.
Notably, strategic practices should not be conflated with any specific policy response nor does a policy change necessitate strategic cultural change.Footnote 43 First responses to environment changes do not automatically lead to deeper practice or discourse changes in strategic cultures and can simply remain at the level of policy changes with diverse, encultured ways to interpret them.Footnote 44 In the case of the EU, policy changes and evolving EU practices may be enabled from-within diverse national strategic cultures even without convergence of these. Policy responses may, however, signal or induce shifts in the dominance of diverse strategic sub-cultures and/or contestation within strategic culture, catalyse new or changing practices, and through these mechanisms gradually influence strategic culture.Footnote 45 Hence, whilst not a constitutive element in changing strategic culture, policy shifts may become instrumental steps in the process of strategic culture change.
We follow Last and others in empirically focusing on the evolution of strategic narratives alongside policy shifts and broader strategic practices.Footnote 46 Strategic narratives are considered as the declaratory and somewhat aspirational expressions of strategic discourse, as the ‘key mechanism through which strategic cultures reproduce, expand or limit the cultural boundaries for what a strategic actor can or is expected to do’.Footnote 47 Narratives are a storied way of articulating one’s view of the world, including oneself, and the appropriate ways of acting.Footnote 48 As a form of communication, strategic narratives both indicate the purpose and goals of strategic behaviour as well as give interpretation to the chosen action.Footnote 49 The relationship between strategic narratives and practices requires empirical scrutiny, as incoherences between the two may suggest ambiguity, weakness, or change within strategic (sub-)cultures.Footnote 50 In the case of the EU, scrutiny is needed not only in the relationship between dominant EU strategic narrative and evolving patterns of behaviour but in how national storylines accommodate, justify, and shape EU action. In the analysis we investigate strategic narratives at the EU and member states level regarding the EPF, how these correspond to the policy shift and subsequent practice evolution regarding military support, and what this tells us about the strategic cultural dynamics of agency, convergence, and change.
The EPF as a case study – methodological framework
This study explores strategic culture dynamics as captured in the strategic narrative and practice evolution regarding the use of the EPF before and after the onset of the full-scale war in Ukraine. As of its adoption as an off-budget CSDP tool in March 2021, the EPF has served as the EU’s key financial instrument covering common military and defence (support) action outside the Union’s borders.Footnote 51 The facility consists of two pillars: one for the common costs of CSDP operations, and an assistance measure pillar for financing support to third parties and their peace operations. Functionally, the EPF broadens the EU’s capability to act by having a global scope and allowing financing of lethal materiel support to EU partners.
We approach the EPF as a case of the EU’s doctrine on military and defence assistance, paying attention to strategic culture dynamics in a specific strategic issue rather than as a whole.Footnote 52 As an intergovernmental tool that requires unanimous decision-making to be deployedFootnote 53, the EPF constitutes a fruitful case study of the shared rules, norms, and habits regarding the EU’s military support to partners as well as the convergence among member states over this. The EPF represents a longer-term attempt to strengthen the EU’s security and defence agency, alongside initiatives such as Permanent Structured Co-Operation (PESCO) or the European Defence Fund (EDF).Footnote 54 The sudden policy change with the EPF in the face of the war presents an opportunity to compare the pre- and post-onset narratives and practice around the EPF.
The analysis consists of two parts and levels. The first part compares the key elements in the EU institutions’ strategic narrative regarding the EPF in pre- and post-onset periods and discusses these in connection with how the instrument is used. Following the theoretical considerations, we approach the EU institutions’ – including the Council’s – narrative on the EPF as more than the sum of the member states’ inter-governmental negotiations and pay explicit attention to the role of the EU institutional foreign policy heads in shaping it. Second, to capture the dynamics of convergence and divergence of member states’ strategic cultural approaches to the EPF in response to the war as well as the interplay between the EU- and national level strategic cultures, the second part of the analysis zooms into EU member states, Germany, France, Poland, and Finland in particular, and their strategic narratives and policies on the EPF. The country selection follows a most diverse cases selection method in that it covers major, small, Eastern, Central, Western, old and young EU members, the perspective of the key funders of the instrument, and countries with a tradition of giving military support and not giving it (to Ukraine).Footnote 55
Throughout the analysis, we follow Last, who adopts a three-dimensional analytical framework of strategic narratives, divided into system, identity, and issue narratives.Footnote 56 System narrative – corresponding to perceptual lens or worldviewFootnote 57 – refers to an actor’s view of the strategic environment in which it acts. To capture it we focus on pre- and post-invasion storylines on the European security environment. Specifically, we analyse how the EU and the member states narrate logics characterising relations between states (e.g. cooperative or competitive) in the European security system and the key threats and challenges in the security environment. Identity narrative refers to an actor’s self-image and narrated key values (including underlying objectives) as a strategic actor. This directs us to identify role and value assignments regarding the EU: what’s the EU’s role in the world in the national and EU-level strategic narratives, how is it portrayed as an actor regarding its objectives and values? Finally, issue narrative captures the purpose, norms, and functions concerning the issue at stake.Footnote 58 It’s the most central narrative for us to examine how the purpose and key functions of the EPF are communicated and emphasised. What is the EPF aligned with as a tool and policy for the EU? What specific objectives and issues are assigned to it? Following this framework allows us to systematically analyse and categorise EU narratives on the EPF in pre- and post-onset periods and examine their change, convergence, and connection to how the EPF is used.
The data of this first part of the analysis includes the Council Conclusions to set up the EPF, strategic orientation document regarding the EPF, the Strategic Compass and its annual update report, fact sheets on the EPF, CFSP priorities report, and statements of the Presidents of the Commission and Council as well as the HR/VP in the wake of the war. We limit our analysis to cover documentation from the adoption of the EPF (March 2021) until early 2024 (the lifespan of the EPF at the time of the analysis). Alongside the qualitative narrative analysis of the documentation, we track the concrete EPF policy in pre- and post-war periods to identify changes in broader practices regarding the EU’s military assistance to third parties. We focus particularly on the assistance measures pillar and the issue of lethal aid support, as it represents the clearest departure from the EU’s business as usual action as a foreign and security policy actor.
The second part of the analysis employs a data set of 40 interviews conducted with member state and EU officials: nine interviews with German stakeholders (10 interviewees), nine interviews with French stakeholders (10 interviewees), five interviews with Polish stakeholders (7 interviewees), six interviews with Finnish stakeholders (7 interviewees), six interviews with EU officials, two interviews with Ukrainian stakeholders and three interviews with other member state representatives. Interviews in EU institutions, other member states, and Ukraine enhance credibility of the data by providing an external perspective on the strategic cultures of the focus countries. Most of the interviewees work for foreign or defence ministries or their diplomatic representations, or for the EU institutions. All interviewees had been involved in or had closely followed the decision-making on the EPF and the evolution of related national policies. The interviews were conducted as thematic interviews during the spring, summer, and autumn of 2023. Full anonymity was granted to the interviewees to ensure that they can speak freely. Supplementary Material, Annex 1–2 provide a list of interviewees and present the applied general interview structure.
The interviewees are viewed both as informants and as agents constituting strategic culture. As such we feel confident that the source and substance of the interview data can provide valuable and credible material regarding the EPF-relevant national beliefs and the narratives communicating these, even when such data arguably differs from that of official strategic documents as data for analysis of strategic narratives. The analysis of the interview data, which consisted of several rounds of qualitative analysis informed by the strategic narrative framework, proceeded from data compilation and organisation into pre- and post-onset notions regarding the EPF to subsequent identification and categorisation of the core elements and trends in the narratives for each country case. In the analysis, we present narrative elements that rise from the data as a whole and exemplify this with direct quotations. The high number of interviewees is due to broad agenda of the interviews (see Supplementary Material, Annex 2), which were conducted as part of a broader project on the EU’s and its member states policies. Some of the interviews covered EPF in detail whilst some more marginally.
As the interviews were only conducted after the full-scale invasion, remarks by the interviewees about the pre-war period need to be interpreted as retrospective reflections and possibly shaped by on-going developments on the ground. Moreover, the member state perspectives on the EPF should be understood as filtered through the interviewed officials: another sample of data could have underlined other strategic cultural aspects; this analysis should be read as one informed by the 46 officials, demonstrating dynamics of convergence, divergence, and change in strategic narratives rather than painting a holistic picture of the core components of the member states’ and/or EU’s strategic agency.
Analysis part I: EPF – an instrument in search of a strategy no more?
From pre-onset ambiguity to a policy shift and post-onset confidence in strategic narrative
When first proposing the EPF in 2017, the former HR/VP Federica Mogherini (2017) justified the tool on the grounds of the changed international system and the ambition set in the Global Strategy for the EU to strengthen its security and defence capabilities.Footnote 59 Member states perceptions of ineffective security support by the EU to its external partners in Central Africa, the Horn and in the Sahel, motivated the initiative. The EU was considered weak in relation to its geopolitical competitors (e.g. Russia, Turkey) in the realm of security partnerships.Footnote 60 The concrete set-up of the EPF reflects this will to strengthen the EU’s military and security support mechanisms.
As Table 1 depicts, despite having its background in security and geostrategic interests of the EU, the strategic narrative regarding the EPF upon its adoption in the pre-onset period was considerably vague and peacebuilding focused. The Council Decision 2021/509 establishes the EPF to ‘preserve peace, prevent conflicts and strengthen international security’ in accordance with the Treaty of the EU. It ties the EPF primarily to the EU’s conflict preventor role and to the principles set out in the EU’s Integrated Approach to external conflicts and crises, reinforcing ‘the linkages between sustainable development, humanitarian action and conflict prevention and peacebuilding’.Footnote 61 Close connection is drawn between the EPF, civilian CSDP, and development cooperation tools of the Union – the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) – as well as Security Sector Reform framework.Footnote 62
Pre- and post-onset strategic narratives on the EPF. The cells present core elements regarding the EU’s narrative on the EPF, categorised into the three narrative elements and pre- and post-onset eras. Data sources (acronyms for the table): EPF fact sheets (FC) 2021, 2023, 2024; Strategic Compass 2022 (SC); Strategic Compass Annual Update (SCU) 2023; Council Conclusions 2021 (CC); Strategic Orientation (SO) for the EPF 2022; CFSP-report: Our priorities – document 2023 (OP).
There is also an emphasis on continuity, starting from the EPF’s name: following the African Peace Facility, the EPF is presented as a more effective version of the EU’s contribution to peace support operations and conflict prevention capacities of partners around the world. How exactly the enhanced military support to partners is to be used in conflict prevention remains undefined and the lethal support possibility under-emphasised in the narrative. Situations that present critical security threats to the Union are mentioned as priorities for action, and the commitment to African-led peace support operations and the Union’s neighbourhood is reiterated.Footnote 63 The Union’s own and international law, particularly regarding human rights, are highlighted in connection to the assistance measures.Footnote 64 Even in the Strategic Compass (published just after the onset of the full-scale war) the EPF is primarily presented in connection to the Integrated Approach and as a capacity building tool alongside the NDICI.Footnote 65
There is a clear shift in the EU’s strategic narrative regarding the EPF after the onset of the full-scale war and the decision to use the EPF to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, as Table 1 showcases with the pre- and post-onset narratives. With regard to the story regarding the system/security environment, the somewhat vague references to a shifting and ‘more challenging environment’ change into clearer notions of ‘era of strategic competition’ and ‘return of war in Europe’ in the post-onset period.Footnote 66 In general, the system narrative shifts from holding on to a logic of cooperation to recognising competition as the increasingly central logic in the system.
In terms of the EU’s identity narrative, there is a less drastic yet interesting shift from a primacy on conflict prevention and peace and security preservation to a story about a provider of security and growth as a security and geopolitical actor. Most glaringly, the issue narrative regarding the EPF – i.e. the norms and purpose concerning the EPF – undergo a change from the ambiguous and continuity-focused narrative to a more confident story that emphasises the new military assistance possibilities. The annual progress report of the Strategic Compass in 2023, for example, emphasises the EU’s enhanced ability to provide robust materiel to partners and does not mention the Integrated Approach.Footnote 67
These shifts are clear when comparing the EU’s EPF fact sheets in different periods. Whereas the early fact sheet frames the facility as a conflict prevention tool, the post-onset iterations have dropped references to conflict prevention and peacebuilding altogether. Instead, they introduce the EPF first and foremost through reference to the system-level threat and the need to protect EU and partner states: the facility ‘expands the EU’s ability to provide security for its citizens and its partners’.Footnote 68 The previously under-emphasised new mechanism of more flexible assistance measures is now highlighted, with the EU being able to provide ‘all types of equipment and infrastructure to the armed forces of EU partners’. Beyond Ukraine, the robust assistance measures are more broadly at the forefront of the narrative.
EU leaders’ statements reinforce the changed narratives. At the Schuman Security Forum in 2023, the HR/VP credits the use of the EPF to provide lethal support to Ukraine (and potentially others) as rectifying and renewing from the perspective of the EU’s geopolitical posturing.Footnote 69 According to the President of the Commission the use of the EPF in Ukraine marks a ‘watershed’ moment for the EU.Footnote 70 This is not to say that the EPF would be completely disconnected from the EU’s traditional identity as a conflict prevention and peace actor. Yet, the earlier emphasis on continuity has clearly given away to an emphasis on the EU’s growth as a security and geopolitical actor.
What do these narrative changes tell us about the EU’s strategic agency? First, the ambiguity regarding the pre-onset narrative can be argued to reflect a broader tension in the EU’s strategic agency. Despite acknowledging the need to strengthen the EU’s means to respond to security threats, there is a hesitance to move away from the traditional narrative highlighting the EU’s conflict prevention and peacebuilding identity in the pre-onset period. As the next section demonstrates, this is connected to the divergences among the member states about the nature of the security system in which the EU operates. The EU’s venturing to the sphere of militarised support sparked controversies within the EU institutions and member states and was strongly criticised by European peacebuilding organizations.Footnote 71 This ambiguity regarding the EPF may help understanding the hesitancy to highlight the new assistance measure possibilities and the conservative attitude regarding their use: no lethal materiel was allocated during the first year of the EPF. As with earlier security and defence capabilities such as the Battles Groups concept, the EPF seems to have remained a tool without a clear strategy in the early days of its adoption.Footnote 72
Second, while the post-onset change in the system narrative can be explained by the drastic change in the EU’s strategic environment due to the full-scale invasion, the shifts in the identity and plot narratives are more clearly linked to the EU’s own policy response to the full-scale invasion. The decision to use the EPF to finance weapon deliveries to the Ukrainian defence forces was an unprecedented and creative response to the war, as the next sections elaborate. From the narrative perspective, it catalysed ripping off the curtain regarding the purpose of the tool and allowed the EPF to be described more clearly as a security and defence instrument, hence inducing ‘a radical paradigm shift’ in the narrative regarding the EPF.Footnote 73 This alludes to a change in the balance of power between the different strategic narratives and strategic sub-cultures regarding the EU’s agency, consolidating a trend towards a more security-emphasising narrative over the civilian-focused peace project narrative.
From an unprecedented initiative to evolving practice
The EPF, whilst ambiguous on its strategic purpose, was unlikely ever feared to become relevant in a scenario such as in Ukraine – as indicated also by the moderate budget allocated to it.Footnote 74 Yet, the presence of the instrument enabled the EU chiefs to act swiftly within the existing tools and employ the EPF to co-fund the Ukrainian defence efforts. The decision to break the taboo of EU arms funding required member states’ approval (as discussed in the next section). However, that the EPF was so quickly deployed and transformed into the spearhead of the EU’s war response also required active agency to put forward the initiative. In this regard, the sudden policy change with the EPF presents an interesting case of agency of change of the EU institutions and foreign policy heads.
This agency was noted in the media as well as by the interviewed officials. Both sources portray a state of shock after the onset of the full-scale war, which opened space for proposals that would have been unimaginable otherwise. According to the deputy secretary-general of the EEAS, Charles Fries, interviewed in a widely-spread Financial Times article, there was a ‘paralysis’ due to the war, and this was quickly utilised by the EEAS to convince the member states about the necessity of military support.Footnote 75 Similarly, an EU official interviewed noted that ‘The HR/VP said we cannot send helmets. […] Institutions have been quite ambitions, and the member states have followed’.Footnote 76
The EEAS, with the lead of the HR/VP, actively challenged the traditional narrative and practice on the limits of the EU’s security agency. Lethal force assistance ought to be on the table because the situation constituted a war, argued the HR/VP.Footnote 77 Afterwards when addressing the European Parliament, he questioned more broadly the norm of civilian only action also when it comes to the EU’s budget use: ‘because we claim that the EU is a peace force and cannot provide arms to anyone else’, he referred to the normative identity and continued, ‘Yes, we can. Yes, we have done – in the next budget, think about it’.Footnote 78
Given its modest initial substantive implications for the volume of military aid the EU member states could bilaterally provide, using EPF to channel the support is to be seen as primarily political and deliberate move to showcase EU-level readiness to act.Footnote 79 As such, the EU foreign policy heads strived to maintain the momentum with the EPF beyond Ukraine. The act of providing lethal materiel support to Ukraine did not go unnoticed by the EU’s African partners, for example, and catalysed pressures on the EU to equally respond to their needs. Rather than narrating Ukraine as an exception to the rule, EU leaders emphasised the EU’s new readiness to better respond to its partners’ needs elsewhere as well.Footnote 80 Indeed, the HR/VP Borrell made this clear when stating that ‘[a]nd now we will not have so many constraints if we need to support another army’.Footnote 81
The extent to which the initiative and changed narrative on the EPF is associated with changed practice of military and security support remains ambiguous. However, there is some indication of change in practice. The EPF has been used to finance lethal support more than once also outside the Ukraine context. The first time was in Niger in the summer 2023, then in Somalia and as of August 2024 most recently in Benin.Footnote 82 Notably, in these cases provisions of lethal support have also been made in situations lower than the standard threshold of war, which departs from the justification for the use of such measures in the context of Ukraine. Granted, the scale of the support in these cases vastly differs from that of Ukraine. However, given the earlier controversy within the EU regarding the provision of lethal materiel to precisely these types of situations, it is remarkable that the decisions have been made with very little public discussion.
This may signal a new mode of EU military support evolving into a generally accepted pattern of behaviour, i.e. practice. The counterargument would be that the application of the EPF and the EU military support more broadly remains cautious and hampered by divergent member state interests. However, divergent interests impeding effective EU action in Ukraine, for example, do not necessarily mean that EU-level practices are unchanging. The act of provisions of lethal support to partners continues to evolve from an unprecedented step to an accepted EU practice as such, even amid member states’ disagreement over where and when it is most needed.
Analysis part II: EPF as a tool for the member states – evolving yet constrained shared strategic culture
We now turn to the perspectives of EU member states and their approaches to the use of the EPF, drawing from the interviews conducted in eight European capitals and delving into the strategic narratives of France, Germany, Poland, and Finland in particular. This snapshot of member state perspectives provides context for the ambiguity of the EU strategic narrative regarding the EPF before 2022. They also demonstrate how the use of the EPF post-onset was facilitated by convergence in system narratives and how this and the use of the EPF in Ukraine contributed to shifting perceptions of the EU’s agency and the issue of EU military support among the member states. We first introduce our results concerning each type of narrative and then discuss the broader implications for EU strategic culture dynamics. Interviewees are referred to with code numbers and the affiliations of the referenced interviewees are listed in Supplementary Material, Annex I.
System narrative
We can identify two key changes in the system narratives that seem to respond to the exogenous shock of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. First, there is increasing convergence among the member states, and secondly, there is a shift from emphasising cooperation to recognising competition as the key feature of the European security system.
The cooperation narrative is central in the interviewees’ justifications for the pre-2022 security policies, particularly in German, French and Finnish narratives.Footnote 83 This included references to multilateralism (German and Finnish interviewees in particular), to interdependence and trade (Germany) and to dialogue (France) as the key norms of managing relations between states in the European security environment. Maintaining good relations and not triggering Russia was highlighted: ‘We were also cautious not to send too fierce signal to Russia’, a French official explained.
Polish descriptions of the pre-2022 security system focused on power competition: if the Polish interviewees referred to cooperation, it meant defence alliances.Footnote 84 Some French interviewees also portrayed the security system as a competitive oneFootnote 85, but the Polish and the French interviewees notably disagreed on the sources of and solutions to the increasing competition (see Table 2). The post-invasion system was narrated by almost all interviewees as a competitive one. This competition narrative focused on the threat of Russia.Footnote 86
Member states’ strategic narratives on the European security system (exemplary quotes, shortened, the interview number in brackets).
The perception regarding Eastern Europe changed in particular. While French interviewees emphasised the increasing relevance of Eastern European security for French national securityFootnote 87, Finnish interviewees mentioned moving from a Russia-centric view on Eastern Europe towards recognising connections between Ukraine’s destiny and the Finnish wars with Russia.Footnote 88 Warsaw in contrast had always viewed Ukraine’s independence and Europeanness as a national security issue.Footnote 89
Reflecting the pre-2022 narratives in retrospect, many interviewees added a meta-layer, noting how the perception of the European security system was based on ‘closing eyes’, ‘being blind’ or ‘not saying the threat out loud’. While German and French interviewees described the shift as ‘waking up’ to the reality, Finnish interviewees rather described it as increasing openness and clarity.Footnote 90
Finally, as Table 2 illustrates, neither of the shifts was complete: divergence remains inside the member states and between them. German and French interviewees underlined the domestic contestation of the new system perception: not all citizens share the current state leadership’s threat perceptions.Footnote 91 Polish interviewees in turn remained frustrated with the incomplete ‘awakening’ in the Western European states.Footnote 92
EU identity
The narratives on the EU identity showcase similar shifting, and according to the interviews this shift is not only in response to the exogenous shock but also reflects the usefulness of the EPF in supporting Ukraine. The shift does not amount to convergence over the EU’s identity, but there is growing agreement about the need to develop the EU as a security actor, and shared acceptance of the EU adopting new security policies. On the other hand, the differing aspirations and visions that member states held for the EU prior to 2022 persist.Footnote 93
Based on the interviews, key differences for the EU’s security identity before 2022 included France’s push for strategically more autonomous and militarily capable EU with a security focus directed to Africa; Poland’s lack of trust and hence low interest towards EU as a security actor; and Germany’s post-World War II risk-aversion which resulted in prioritising the multilateral EU as a channel for security policies but also opposing any too openly military roles for the EU, in particular in the Eastern neighbourhood.Footnote 94 Finnish interviewees’ descriptions of the pre-2022 preferences seem aligned with both the French idea of developing the EU as a security actor and the German preference for civilian engagement.Footnote 95
We wanted the EU to have the same threat perception, which was not. […] It was before last year, it was rather unthinkable that EU uses forces or even training missions in Eastern Europe. Even support programmes, the way it was in the South.
Official in a leading position, MFA of Poland, October 2023
As Table 3 demonstrates, these differences remain to some extent in the national narratives also after 2022. As the most remarkable change, Poland now recognises the added value of the EU as a security actor and is more invested in implementing the joint policies in the EU framework.Footnote 96 Furthermore, despite the remaining differences, the interviewees considered the level of change in Berlin’s and Paris’ EU visions central in enabling the evolving EU-level strategic narrative and practice regarding the EPF.Footnote 97 Both had opposed military role for the EU in the Ukraine conflict after 2014 but changed their stance in response to the full-scale war: to transform the EU from a civilian security actor into a military capacity builder. According to the interviews, the two capitals changed their views in a coordinated manner – while maintaining the key elements of their differing positions.Footnote 98
Member states’ strategic narratives on the EU identity (exemplary quotes, shortened, the interview number in brackets).
Moreover, the development of the EU matched both the German preference for multilateralism and the French vision for developing EU as a military actor. According to one French interviewee, the exercise of funding lethal materiel for Ukraine encouraged a wider geostrategic discussion among the member states, serving as a ‘catalyst’ for joint strategic visioning.Footnote 99 Warsaw that had found its security priorities marginalised in the EU was positively surprised about the development.Footnote 100 The EU’s development was similarly aligned with Finland’s preferences, but some noted that Finland’s concurrent NATO accession was potentially decreasing the EU’s relevance for it as a security actor.Footnote 101
Issue plot
The (limited) convergence among the member states strategic narratives culminates in the strategic issue of funding weapon deliveries through the EPF. The analysis of the issue plot around the EPF demonstrates that while the member states attached different objectives and values to the development and the use of the EPF, the practical use of it in support of Ukraine contributed to convergence. Table 4 illustrates the findings in this regard.
You know, it [the EPF] is a step forward for European defence. […] We try to feed this policy to develop it, to have something very concrete, and EPF is such. It makes the EU member states to work together on defence as a common goal without NATO.
French diplomat, November 2023
Member states’ narratives on the issue (exemplary quotes, shortened, the interview number in brackets).
According to the interviews, the adoption of the EPF in 2021 was driven by France pushing for the EU’s capability development for the needs in the Southern neighbourhood on one hand, and Germany also finding the development of such a funding instrument legitimate means of advancing its security policy goals.Footnote 102 Finland and Poland did not find the tool particularly relevant for their national security interests but did not oppose it either.Footnote 103 These differing positions provide an explanation for the ambiguous EU-level pre-onset narrative discussed in the earlier section. Despite the ambiguity, the fact that the tool existed before the escalation of the war was perceived essential in enabling the policy shift in February 2022.Footnote 104
The decision to use the EPF to fund lethal support could not be taken for granted. In the first days of the war, Warsaw remained doubtful about the usefulness of the tool but did not oppose using it to support Ukraine.Footnote 105 Finland hesitated at first, but Nordic coordination turned it in favour of using the tool and sending weapons to Ukraine.Footnote 106 Germany’s green light in particular could not be taken for granted: the system narrative shift was only in the beginning, and the policy shift was internally contested.Footnote 107 France’s position was least surprising to the interviewees that viewed the use of the EPF in line with its vision of developing European military agency.Footnote 108 Some interviewees noted the role of EU institutions pushing for the use of the EPF to fund weapon deliveries.Footnote 109
The use of the tool – tranche after another – carried different meanings for each member state. Non-Polish interviewees often mentioned that the EPF money encouraged Warsaw to send weapons to Ukraine: the first reimbursement tranches in particular were processed with high coverage rates, allowing Poland to replace its Soviet defence capabilities with modern equipment.Footnote 110 Polish interviewees argued that the weapons would have been delivered anyway, but the reimbursements were helpful in re-filling stocks.Footnote 111
The Finnish initial hesitation quickly shifted to strong support for using the EPF. Especially in the first months of the full-scale war, the EPF provided a framework for sharing the political and security risk of equipping Russia’s enemy in war. The financial benefit gained attention over time: while the interviewees said that weapons to Ukraine would have been sent anyway, they noted that the reimbursements also made the aid easier to justify.Footnote 112
For Finland, it was very important that the EU made the decision to use the EPF before we started our bilateral support. It was around this EU ministerial meeting that Kaikkonen participated, that we heard that Sweden would give military support, and then this EPF decision was taken – it was significant for Finland’s initial support decision.
Finnish diplomat, June 2023
Some German interviewees also mentioned the use of the EPF limiting ‘the exposure of individual member states’.Footnote 113 While the interviewees agreed that international pressure pushed Germany’s policy shift vis-à-vis lethal aid, assessments on the EPF’s role in this function varied. There was no financial incentive for Germany, but the EPF was considered by some to have channelled expectations and pressure on Berlin (however, the US pressure was considered to have played a greater role)Footnote 114:
It is funny but the [EPF] ammunition initiative, what it was – a letter from the Estonian minister of defence, very clumsy letter that had a huge effect. But the initiative is also a question of politics, […] it is political initiative, which of course gives political pressure to give more ammunition to Ukraine, so it has an effect on the ground. Germany did it also before, but with this political pressure we had the fifth look at our stocks if we could deliver more.
Official, Federal Foreign Office of Germany, October 2023.
The member states plugged in to the use of the EPF with different roles. While France’s contribution in the development of the tool was highlighted, Germany’s contribution to the EPF’s multiannual budget (approximately one fourth of the total pot) was underlined. Several interviewees highlighted that this allowed others to cover costs of weapon deliveries to Ukraine. Polish and other interviewees agreed that Poland in turn had a vital impact in quickly supplying weapons, while other states were still stuck in decision-making processes.Footnote 115 Poland did not use the EPF only for weapon deliveries to Ukraine, but it also started to co-host the EPF-funded EU military assistance mission (EUMAM) to Ukraine with Germany – however, competition between the two hosts was also mentioned.Footnote 116
Finally, national differences on using the EPF in Ukraine grew with time. While Germany was happy about the EPF allowing at least some institutionalisation of European support to Ukraine, it remained critical of the lack of long-term, strategic vision for the assistance.Footnote 117 Even more importantly, it became critical to pay such a high price to refill stocks of other member states.Footnote 118 Another disagreement emerged between Paris and some other EU states. Paris advocated for using the EPF to primarily empower European defence industries.Footnote 119 ‘[The EPF] will be better used to European defence industries. So we can help Ukraine and make the strategic defence in Europe stronger at the same time, to make our producers stronger’, a senior official at the French Ministry of Armed Forces said. Interviewees from elsewhere believed it to come at the cost of Ukraine receiving equipment more slowly than if purchased from the international market.Footnote 120 Hungary’s vetoing, the German dissatisfaction and the disagreement about the source of the weapons led to the paralysis of the EPF in the latter half of 2023.
The EPF in and beyond Ukraine: evolution and limits of convergence over the EU strategic agency
The analysis of the member state narratives demonstrates how an EU tool can serve as an enabler of joint strategic action and evolution of new practices despite prevailing divergences in national strategic cultures. The crisis catalysed a level of convergence in the national system narratives regarding European security and Russia, enabling EU-level action in the form of the EPF funded lethal support. This EU-level action served different purposes for different member states from the perspective of their strategic cultures. The EPF’s usefulness contributed to a shift in national perceptions on the role of the EU as a security actor, which in turn facilitated the EU-level evolution of military support narrative and practice. Figure 1 below illustrates these findings.
The EU’s strategic agency evolves through an interplay of the evolving practice of using the EPF, clarifying EU-level strategic narrative, and converging member states’ narratives in response to the exogenous shock of the full-scale war.
The EPF channelled different roles of EU states towards the (eventually) shared objective of supporting Ukraine, including France pushing for the establishing of EU instruments with a military dimension, Germany being the main funder of the EPF, and Poland quickly supplying weapons to Ukraine.Footnote 121 The EPF did not only facilitate joint action but also shaped national responses to Russia’s war: the joint EPF-decision encouraged Finland among others to provide military support to Ukraine. Simultaneously, member states gave varying functions to the EPF and used it for several purposes. This contributes to Meyer’s (2006) argument that evolution of shared EU strategic culture does not need to replace national strategic cultures: in contrast, an EU-level tool may help accommodate divergent national cultures and allow an extent of shared strategic culture without considerable changes in national identitiesFootnote 122.
To an extent the case can be seen as an example of temporarily overlapping rather than converging strategic sub-cultures among the EU states. The re-emergence of member states’ divergences – from Hungary’s veto to the disagreements on the costs and sources of weapons as well as the balance between regions – indicates prevailing national differences in how and when the EU ought to act. The temporarily overlapping storylines regarding the main threats and objectives for the EU can also be expected to diverge and the competition between sub-cultures to reinforce after the war cools down.
Nevertheless, the near ten aid tranches to Ukraine, the decision-making around those, the principles agreed upon for reimbursements, the operating and exchanges with the Clearing House Cell, and the actual arms deliveries from the member states to Ukraine can be read as a manifestation of evolution of EU strategic culture in action. Equally, the exchanges preceding and around the Council meetings concerning the general objectives, principles, and means regarding the EPF and the EU’s role, as well as the institution building around the EPF, can be expected to pave the way for further evolution of EU strategic culture in the future. Indeed, the clarified narrative and evolving practice around the EPF has already materialised in the provision of lethal materiel to other partners.
Hence, while the quick evolution of joint strategic thinking around the EPF in the early days of Russia’s invasion was somewhat temporary and tied to the converging system narrative in response to the exogenous shock, the effects of the joint exercise can be expected to be long(er)-lasting. The concept of strategic culture invites us to differentiate the disagreements that come and go from the broader development of shared overall narrative and practice which have evolved with the use of the EPF. The EU now is a security political actor with internal legitimacy in supplying weapons to a party of a war, reflected also in the official communications.
Finally, from the point of view of the joint objective of supporting Ukraine the peak in shared strategic perspectives was also not insignificant. That the EPF concretely contributed to Ukraine receiving more weapons was widely shared among the interviewees. On the other hand, the limitations of the EPF – its constrained envelope, political blockages and the handling of the support in small tranches – arguably negatively impacted its defence effort and demonstrated short-termism in the EU’s strategic vision. Moreover, the EPF-funded materiel originating from several states caused problems in the battlefieldFootnote 123, reminding of the fundamental non-integration and lack of joint strategic culture between European armies.
Conclusion
The use of the EPF to provide lethal aid to Ukraine marked a significant shift in the EU’s security and defence policy. Our analysis points to three concluding remarks on what this can tell us about the EU’s strategic agency and culture evolution.
First, the use of the EPF suggests and catalysed evolution in the EU’s security agency. EU-level strategic narrative regarding military support to partners developed. The initial ambiguity surrounding the EPF’s purpose has given way to a more defined narrative that positions the EU as a security actor capable of providing lethal aid to its partners in a geopolitically competitive world. That the member states – despite prevailing divergences in strategic cultures – have agreed upon financing lethal materiel to other partner states suggests an emergence of a new practice. These findings contribute to understanding of strategic cultural change through the dynamics of institution building, crisis and policy response, a shift in (dominant) strategic narrative, and a broader change in strategic practice.
Second, our analysis sheds light to the mechanisms through which the EU and member states cultures interact and evolve. While not themselves constituting cultural changes, policy changes may open space for renegotiation of strategic narratives at EU- and national levels, which facilitates changes in practices. Our study points to a two-way street between the EU’s and the member states’ strategic cultures and agencies: EU-level action may act as a scapegoat and help to accommodate diverse national cultures whilst also enabling new types of security and defence initiatives at the member states level (that feed back to the EU).
Third, EU member states divergences in strategic cultures, which may be viewed from the perspective of strategic sub-cultures, remain persistent even in wartime. Our paper suggests a growing recognition among the member states of the need for a more robust EU security and defence policy. However, the persistent divergences among member states underscore the challenges of maintaining a unified plan regarding a strategic issue, not to mention constructing shared strategic culture, within the EU. As an inter-governmental agent, effective and single-voice EU on security and defence remains context-dependent, even when practices and discourse concerning an issue of strategic interest may evolve.
These findings give rise to future research avenues. Evolution of EU military assistance and its effects on the EU’s agency beyond Ukraine deserves attention. As implied in the early criticism around the EPF, more robust military support to partners does not automatically align with the EU’s Integrated Approach and its broader objectives of conflict prevention and sustainable peace. In this light, empirical attention ought to be given to the narratives and conditions under which lethal aid support has been given to other partners. More broadly, how the practice of more robust military support to partners is shaping the member states’ role attribution (and convergence of this) to the EU and their own national strategic cultures deserves scrutiny.
Finally, our study encourages more research on the interplay between supranational and national strategic cultural change as well as the dynamics of internal and external expectations regarding the EU. In a world characterised by intensified strategic competition and increased uncertainty in the transatlantic relations, external pressures and incentives concerning the EU’s role shape policy responses and may shift balance in dominant national and EU strategic narratives and discourses on the EU’s security and defence role. How and when these external dynamics interact with the dynamics of convergence and competition of strategic sub-cultures within the Union will be crucial in shaping its agency on the global stage.
Supplementary material
The supplementary material for this article can be found at: https://doi.org/10.1017/eis.2025.10022.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the organisers, discussants, and participants of the panel on European strategic cultures held at the European International Studies Association (EISA) annual conference in the summer of 2024 as well as the participants of the EU CSDP-focused panel at the Finnish International Studies Association convention in Imatra, January 2025. In particular, the authors are grateful to Niklas Helwig, Anton Staffans, Hanna Ojanen, Antti Seppo and Tommi Koivula (the STRAX Team), Christoph Meyer, as well as Henri Vogt, Ville Savoranta and Jyrki Ruohomäki for their feedback and comments received at different stages of the research process. This research would not have been possible without the trust and time of the interviewed officials, and we would like to express our gratitude to everyone that shared their time with our research. Finally, we are grateful to the editors at EJIS and the two anonymous reviewers whose constructive, careful, and insightful feedback helped to strengthen the article.
Funding statement
This work is supported by the Research Council of Finland as part of the project ‘Transforming strategic cultures in contemporary Europe: Towards an understanding of reasons, intermediaries and processes of change (STRAX)’. It is also supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation (Tyyne Karjalainen’s personal grant).
Competing interests
The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.
Ethical standards
The Ethics Committee for Human Sciences at the University of Turku has issued a positive statement concerning the involvement of human participants (research interviews) in this research.
Katariina Mustasilta is a Senior Research Fellow in the European Union and Strategic Competition research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). Her research focuses on the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and external action in the realms of conflicts and threats to peace and international conflict prevention, crisis management, and peace-building efforts more broadly. Her work has been published in various peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Peace Research, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Comparative Political Science, and European Foreign Affairs Review.
Tyyne Karjalainen is a doctoral researcher in political science at the University of Turku focusing on the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood policies. She is also a Research Fellow in the European Union and Strategic Competition research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Her research focuses on European Union foreign and security policy, EU enlargement and differentiated integration in the EU. Her publications also cover peacebuilding, crisis management and peace mediation. Her work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, such as The International Spectator, Contemporary Social Science, and East Asia.
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