from the Center for European Reform.

This is the CERR podcast.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the CER podcast.

My name is Sophia Besch.

I'm a research fellow here at the Center for European Reform.

And today I'm in conversation with

Francois-Ezboor, who's calling in from Paris. Francois-Berzboor is a special advisor at the

Foundation for La Rechecheche Strategic, a think tank in Paris. He was previously chairman at the

IAS in London, a international security advisor to the French Ministry of Defense and a founding

member of the French-G German Commission on Security and Defense.

He's also a CER board member.

What we want to talk about today is EU defense.

We have seen a lot of activity on the EU side over the past year, both by the member states and the institutions.

And we want to talk about what motivates the

EU's defense efforts and where we are headed. But before we zoom out, I want to zoom in and discuss

the concrete proposal of the European Defense Fund. Let me quickly sum up what the fund does.

So with the defense fund, the European Commission is for the first time proposing

to use money out of the EU budget to incentivise member states to do more joint capability development.

And for that, the Commission is offering to spend from 2020 on 500 million euros annually on

research, which would make the EU the fourth biggest research funder in Europe,

and also from 2020 on provide 1 billion euros annually to co-finance new military prototypes.

The key is that only joint projects get commission money,

...