When the former European Central Bank president and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi laid out a plan for Europe to catch up economically with the US and China, collaborating on defence was one of the prescriptions. No more should each country in Europe try to make its own version of a boat, tank or jet but instead share costs and technologies between allies.
Europe appears to have fallen at the first hurdle. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, were forced to cancel the joint future combat air system in June, after fraught efforts to work together since 2018.
