Does the European defence burden-sharing matter?

Since December 1998, the European Union (EU) has institutionalized its defence policy by implementing the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and realizing major improvements by way of a bigger investment of EU members. Nevertheless, since national capabilities are different and the incentives to contribute voluntarily are still weak, not all countries have followed the same pattern in financing the ESDP. Thus, what are the budgetary stakes for an effective and efficient ESDP? Before responding to this question, it seems important to provide an accurate definition of ESDP by putting forward the expected goals and the institutional design to achieve them. As Howorth (2007) notes, a flow of misleading allegations surrounds the ESDP. Among them, the idea that the ESDP corresponds to a European Army is very frequent in the press, when in fact, “each military or civilian mission mounted by ESDP has had its own terms of reference, its own volunteers from a range of EU members States (and indeed from a range of non-EU members states as well), its own logistics and command arrangements, and its own lifetime. When the mission is terminated, the resources, both human and material, initially assigned to it, revert to their national owners” ( Howorth, 2007, p. 40 ).