EU abruptly shelves Kallas-led defense panel after pushback from Berlin, Paris, Rome

VIENNA — EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas scrapped plans to launch a high-level advisory group on European defense just hours before its scheduled unveiling, after several member states, reportedly including Germany, Italy and France, pushed back against the initiative.

The group, first announced by Kallas at an informal defense ministers’ meeting in Wicklow, Ireland, on Sept. 1, was meant to bring together former political and military leaders to draft recommendations for closing Europe’s capability gaps faster. Former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was expected to chair the panel, with ex-defense ministers Jüri Luik of Estonia and Florence Parly of France among the anticipated members, according to diplomats familiar with the plans. The United Kingdom and Ukraine were also expected to take part.

The formal launch, a fireside chat with Kallas planned for Sept. 7 at Brussels’ Bibliothèque Solvay with roughly 150 invitees, was called off on the afternoon of Sept. 6, before the group’s membership had even been officially confirmed.

“Some member states felt this was not the right path to pursue at this moment,” Politico quoted an unnamed EU official as saying, adding that Kallas’s office would instead pursue “new ways of engaging with member states.”

German news agency dpa reported that Berlin’s objections were central to the reversal, and Euractiv reported that France, Germany and Italy jointly rejected the plan, which had been informally likened to a “Draghi report for defense.”

Speaking to reporters on Monday, a German defense ministry spokesperson said the government did not want to comment on consultations by EU countries, while also highlighting that Germany considers NATO the first and foremost venue for military capability planning.

“Fundamentally, defense and armaments policy are the responsibility of the member states, while capability planning and defense planning are derived from NATO planning,” the spokesperson said. Various EU initiatives such as meetings of defense ministers, PESCO, EDF, SAFE and Military Mobility are valuable “to accompany all of this,” he said.

“The EU has regularly launched various such initiatives in the past. Some find approval, some less so,” the German military spokesperson said.

The episode is the latest sign of friction between Kallas’ diplomatic service and the European Commission over who controls the bloc’s defense agenda. Some capitals are said to have worried the group would duplicate work already underway under Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, while Berlin has separately pushed to fold parts of the European External Action Service into the Commission itself.

The collapse comes as Kallas has repeatedly warned that Europe cannot keep “outsourcing” its defense to the United States and must move faster to rearm as Russia escalates hybrid and, increasingly, kinetic pressure on the continent’s eastern and northern flanks.

One EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged the underlying problem remains unresolved regardless of the group’s fate: “Europe still needs to confront the question the group was designed to address — how to strengthen European defense faster.”

Linus Höller is Defense News' Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds master’s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.

维也纳——欧盟外交政策负责人卡娅·卡拉斯在原定启动欧洲防务高级别咨询小组的计划公布前几个小时取消了该计划，据报道，包括德国、意大利和法国在内的几个成员国反对这项倡议。

该小组由卡拉斯于9月1日在爱尔兰威克洛举行的非正式国防部长会议上首次宣布成立，旨在汇集前政治和军事领导人，共同制定建议，以加快弥合欧洲的能力差距。据熟悉该计划的外交官透露，前北约秘书长安德斯·福格·拉斯穆森预计将担任该小组主席，爱沙尼亚前国防部长尤里·卢伊克和法国前国防部长弗洛朗丝·帕利预计将是成员之一。英国和乌克兰预计也将参与其中。

原定于 9 月 7 日在布鲁塞尔索尔维图书馆举行的正式启动仪式，即与卡拉斯的炉边谈话（约有 150 名受邀者），在 9 月 6 日下午被取消，当时该组织的成员甚至还没有正式确认。

Politico援引一位不愿透露姓名的欧盟官员的话说：“一些成员国认为，目前这不是正确的道路。”他还补充说，卡拉斯的办公室将转而寻求“与成员国进行新接触的方式”。

德国新闻社 dpa 报道称，柏林的反对是导致这一决定逆转的关键因素；Euractiv 报道称，法国、德国和意大利共同拒绝了该计划，该计划曾被非正式地比作“德拉吉国防报告”。

德国国防部发言人周一在接受记者采访时表示，德国政府不愿对欧盟国家的磋商发表评论，同时强调德国将北约视为军事能力规划的首要场所。

发言人表示：“从根本上讲，国防和军备政策是成员国的责任，而能力规划和国防规划则源于北约的规划。” 他还指出，欧盟的各项举措，例如国防部长会议、永久性结构性合作（PESCO）、欧洲发展基金（EDF）、安全、未来和未来（SAFE）计划以及军事机动性计划，对于“所有这些工作都至关重要”。

德国军方发言人表示：“欧盟过去曾多次推出此类举措。有些获得认可，有些则不然。”

这一事件再次表明，卡拉斯领导的外交部门与欧盟委员会之间就欧盟防务议程的控制权问题存在摩擦。据称，一些国家首都担心，该小组的工作会与国防专员安德留斯·库比柳斯目前开展的工作重复，而柏林方面则一直在推动将欧洲对外行动署的部分职能并入欧盟委员会。

卡拉斯一再警告说，欧洲不能继续将国防“外包”给美国，必须加快重新武装，因为俄罗斯正在加大对欧洲大陆东部和北部的混合武力和日益增长的动能压力。而就在此时，欧洲军方却崩溃了。

一位不愿透露姓名的欧盟官员承认，无论该组织的命运如何，根本问题仍然没有得到解决：“欧洲仍然需要面对该组织旨在解决的问题——如何更快地加强欧洲的防御。”

林努斯·霍勒是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者和开源情报调查员。他报道影响欧洲乃至全球的军火交易、制裁和地缘政治。他拥有大规模杀伤性武器不扩散、恐怖主义研究和国际关系三个硕士学位，并精通英语、德语、俄语和西班牙语四种语言。