Discontinuity by Design? EU Flagship Defence Projects and the Limits of the Rotating Presidency

The Council of the European Union has a Rotating Presidency structure, devised to guarantee inclusion of all Member States, no matter the size, ensuring the dominant players do not dominate the EU policy making agenda. The Rotating Council Presidency (RCP) is divided into Trio’s of Member States, in principle bringing policy coherence and a common programme to the three presidencies. In reality, however, the structures suffers from shortcomings, and within trio’s individual Presidencies use the opportunity to promote their own interests for a period of 6 months. The effects are particularly detrimental to Union defence policy, a policy area that by its very nature requires long-term planning.

This essay demonstrates the shortcomings of the RCP by focusing on its effects on the European defence flagship projects during the current Trio: Poland (01/2025-06/2025), Denmark (07/2025-12/2025) and Cyprus (01/2026-07/2026). In principle, a flagship project should be a broad goal that Member States and industry develop and deliver defence capabilities for. In practice, the flagship projects change per Presidency, severely undercutting long-term defence planning. The essay finishes on a reflection on the legal basis of the RCP and a proposal to reform it, within the RCP’s treaty mandate. 

The Dysfunctional Trio

In the Trio overarching programme has but one short sentence on the flagships: “The trio will take forward the Union’s efforts on flagship projects and defence initiatives of common interest across the EU.” The interpretation of this differs wildly amongst them.

Poland

The Polish Presidency opened the Trio in January 2025 and firmly established the Eastern focus of the security and defence policy. In the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and potential further Russian aggression, Warsaw centred its efforts on two flagship projects, the Baltic Defence Line and the Eastern Shield. These two projects had to be interconnected lines of military fortifications along the Russian border, designed to halt any Russian advance, combined with intelligence and surveillance capabilities to spot troop movement and anti-drone capabilities. The Polish Presidency mentions this specifically: “in accordance with Poland’s strategic perspective; designating the East Shield as a priority project for EU security” and “putting both the East Shield and the Baltic Defence Line in the White Paper [for European Defence] as critical projects.” The Friedrich Naumann Foundation further situates this Presidency push as in Polish national interest: “Poland’s geographic location on the EU’s eastern border makes this issue particularly urgent.” The Institut de Recherche Internationale Strategique (IRIS) states “Poland is particularly concerned with protecting the EU’s eastern border […] and seeks to use EU instruments to support this”. The Polish Presidency takes credit for its adoption as a flagship programme, stating that thanks to their commitment, the European Council (EUCO) has adopted the project in their Conclusions of 6 March 2025. It was consequently also taken up by the European Parliament in Resolution 2025/2565(RSP).

Denmark

The Danish programme came in with a clean slate. Contrary to the two identified defence priorities of the Poles, Danish premier Frederiksen stated that there is no signature project for Denmark’s presidency on Defence. In a way, this was correct. The mentions of the Baltic Defence Line and the Eastern Shield were promptly removed from the draft text of the European Competitiveness Fund in the Danish draft. The newer version of the European Flagship Projects were swiftly revealed to be fourfold, rather than twofold. The Eastern Shield was modified and renamed the Eastern Flank Watch, signalling greater focus on ISR capabilities and less on physical fortification. The Baltic Defence Line was never to be heard from again. In its stead came the Air Shield, the Space Shield, and a Drone Wall, later restyled into the anti-drone initiative. As Poland was clearly focused on Europe’s Eastern Flank, so too did the Danes quickly develop their own priority area. Around the October EUCO and subsequent European Political Community meeting in Copenhagen, drone sightings, presumably of Russian origin, around critical infrastructure put Copenhagen and the EU on high alert. Ole Kvaerno, Brigadier in the Danish Military, admitted to the BBC that while the drone wall was a “political, very generic concept” at the time, the drone activity has served as a wake-up call for the authorities. Drone incursions flagged to the EU that it is in a state of hybrid warfare with Russia, and the narrative shifted to the drone initiative, with Frederiksen urging European unity in the project. Quickly after the incursions, Frederiksen “outlined an initiative to create a European network capable of detecting and neutralizing unmanned aerial vehicles.

Cyprus

With Europe set on the four flagships at the end of 2025, the Cypriot Presidency took over and shook priorities up once again. None have summed up the reorientation better than Deputy Minister for European Affairs, Ms Marilena Raouna, in her Mid-Term Review of the Presidency’s outcomes: “Key priorities that we have set as the Cyprus presidency, with a focus, amongst others, on the Greater Middle East and the Gulf, as well as on critical security issues as maritime security.” This agenda setting trickles down to all levels of EU decision making. Ms Raouna appeared in the European Parliament to speak on, amongst others, maritime security, and in the EUCO Conclusions, her wording was repeated verbatim. These conclusions included three separate paragraphs on Eastern-Mediterranean and maritime security, on top of the understandable attention given to the Strait of Hormuz. A quantitative discourse analysis of the three Presidency programmes is particularly illustrative. The following table shows how many times various defence-related terms are mentioned in the respective programmes. 

Table 1: Keyword frequency in the Polish, Danish, and Cypriot Presidency Programmes

The shift from Ukraine and Russia to maritime and the Mediterranean is clear, with Russia being mentioned 5 times less in the Cypriot programme than in the Polish one, maritime 3 times more, maritime 5 time more and Gulf and Middle East even 6 times more.

Euractiv further reported that a Council workshop, which was already planned and should discuss the four flagship projects, saw its objective altered by the Cypriot Presidency. They note that the scope of the workshop was “changed to cover all projects that countries could fund with the billions the EU earmarked for defence”, clearly reflecting a de-prioritization of the pre-agreed four flagships. The constant revision of priorities and projects is a major stumbling block for decisive EU integration. 

Proposal for Reform

The current system is geared towards discontinuity. For decisive action in European defence, the trio structure should be revised. There are several legal constraints for reforming the RCP without resorting to treaty change. The treaties prescribe that the Presidency is held “on the basis of equal rotation” by pre-established groups of three Member States for 18 months, “taking into account their diversity and geographical balance within the Union.” It furthermore states that “[e]ach member of the group shall in turn chair for a six-month period all configurations of the Council, with the exception of the Foreign Affairs configuration”, and the trio operates on the basis of a “common programme.” The treaty however allows that “[m]embers of the trio may decide alternative arrangements among themselves.” 

There is no prescribed trio composition, and the current set composition is a result of one decision taken by the European Council. It can therefore be repealed by another. There is already precedent for reconfiguration of the trio’s. In 2006, Finland and Germany exchanged their scheduled presidencies to avoid conflict with German general elections, and the UK relinquished their presidency of 2017 after the Brexit vote. 

In short, only the trio structure (3x 6-month presidencies with one overarching programme) and the principle of equal rotation must be safeguarded. It emerges from the treaty that it was always the intention that the trio acts on one common programme, executed by three different presidencies during six months each, while being supported by the other two. The current system of a trio in which each presidency acts separately and has their own programme with their own priorities, only are loosely tied by one vaguely formulated text, was never intended. 

The trio’s, then, must be reconfigured on the basis of likemindedness. Such a reformed system would group states that share broadly aligned strategic cultures and policy priorities. This would allow the common trio-programme to reflect a genuinely shared and detailed agenda, that all three Presidencies are invested in advancing. Individual six-month presidency programmes should be reduced to operational implementation documents, specifying how the chairing member intends to conduct negotiations during its period, not articulating new political priorities. Flagship defence projects would carry the political commitment of all three presidencies across 18 months, making it substantially harder for any one presidency to quietly abandon or rebrand what its predecessor had built.

The new trios would need to emerge from political bargaining processes in the European Council, but already several natural groupings suggest themselves. The BeNeLux is one such pre-existing trio with deep coordination habits and broad alignment on most European policy issues. The Nordic states (Sweden, Denmark and Finland), the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), and a combination of the Visegrad Group (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia) are all workable and obvious candidates who share priorities and strategic cultures.

The final element of a revised trio configuration addresses the asymmetry of administrative capacity. A reformed trio should be size-balanced, ensuring that smaller states, such as Cyprus or Malta, are paired with at least one larger Member State with deep institutional resources. This would allow the larger state’s ministries and permanent representation staff to backstop the technical dossier preparation that smaller states struggle to resource, particularly in niche or specialised policy areas.  For example, if Italy and Malta would be grouped together in a trio, Italy could provide administrative capacity and technical expertise in niche areas such as space policy, where Malta does not dispose of a space agency and its expertise. 

Conclusion

The RCP as currently operationalized is structurally misaligned with the requirements of coherent and long-term European defence policy. This is clearly demonstrated by the shifting of focus in European defence flagships, from the Baltic Defence Line, to four flagships including the Drone Wall, to a revision of the flagships and shifting priorities to the Mediterranean and maritime security. However, trio’s consisting of likeminded Member States, with a detailed common programme and size-balanced capacity sharing would transform the trio from a scheduling mechanism into a genuine driver of European governance. The rotating presidency would remain. The discontinuity it generates would not.

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