Kallas Scraps EU Defence Advisory Group Days After Announcing It

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has abandoned a defence advisory group she announced barely a week ago, after member states pushed back against the initiative before it held a single meeting.

Kallas unveiled the body at an informal gathering of EU defence ministers in Ireland around September 1. She described it as a vehicle to bring together political and military leaders for fresh thinking on European defence.

"The aim is to have some of the brightest minds on security and defence come together and really provide out-of-the-box solutions on how we can be faster in fulfilling these gaps and how we can be more effective," she said at the press conference.

The group was purely advisory — it would have held no authority to make decisions on behalf of member states. Several governments opposed it regardless.

"Some member states felt this was not the right path to pursue at this moment," a source said.

Invitees had been due at a Brussels venue on Monday for a fireside chat with Kallas. They received the cancellation notice Sunday afternoon. No participants' names had ever been made public. The group never officially launched.

For Kallas, the episode is a significant setback. She had recently assembled a new EEAS leadership team in an effort to reinforce her institutional standing.

One EU official insisted the underlying challenge remains open. "The diagnosis has not changed that Europe needs to deliver faster on defence. Europe still needs to confront the question the group was designed to address, how to strengthen European defence faster."

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's push for greater influence over EU foreign policy — and a Franco-German proposal that would place the EEAS under the European Commission president's supervision while expanding the High Representative's portfolio — add further strain to Kallas's position.