Developing Assessment Criteria for Defence Cooperation

Ester Sabatino, Edouard Simon, Fara Breuer & Juliette Renaut

This working paper set out on the ambitious task of creating a tool to enable consistent and high-quality evaluation of defence cooperation in the EU framework and among EU Member States at four different levels (i.e. politico-strategic, operational, capability development and partnership).

Indicators were developed to assess the effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and sustainability of defence cooperation at these four levels.

Each metric is judged against parameters ranging from 0 to 4 (with 4 representing the best possible outcome).

While this working paper is relevant to users aiming at evaluating cooperation ex-post, policymakers can also refer to it to shape their cooperation ex-ante.

Indeed, the criteria and metrics proposed can ultimately inform future attempts at defence cooperation in terms of best practices and those that should be avoided.