Opinion

The Nordics wrote Europe's defence blueprint. Copy it, all of it

Sweden's record spending still leaves NATO's capability targets unmet, and money alone will not close the gap. Only a binding legal framework for joint procurement and shared planning can, so the EU should build one modelled on the Nordic agreement.

On 12 November, the Nordic Defence Ministers did what the rest of Europe keeps postponing. On 12 November 2026, the Nordic Defence Ministers agreed to start developing a Nordic Defence Cooperation Agreement, a legal framework for their defence cooperation. Days earlier, on 9 November, Dagens Nyheter reported that Sweden's defence, despite everything it spends, still falls short of NATO's capability targets. The verdict is simple. The Nordics wrote the blueprint for European defence, and the answer is plain: copy it, all of it. What they built by hand, the rest of Europe can build by design.

Money alone does not scale, and Sweden proves it. It has borrowed 300 billion kronor and is receiving record-large additions of funding. The Army and the Air Force are among the branches that fall short. A country running every lever it has, and still short. But look at the change Sweden chose. Sweden stayed out of military alliances for more than 200 years, then signed up to NATO by March 2024, because security no longer stops at the border. A national pledge is a promise. A framework is a contract. Binding what you already intend is not a loss of control. It is control, written down where it counts.

Then comes the test of the decade ahead.

Ammunition production across the Nordics is on track to triple by 2030, as promised. Sweden holds NATO's framework-nation role for the allied forward land forces stationed in Finland, and Sweden and Finland now buy armoured vehicles together, 300 Sisu GTP added to 321 Patria XA-300, instead of each ordering its own. Sweden and Finland have already begun joint planning for cross-border evacuations, and a Nordic preparedness strategy for transport and cross-border infrastructure is due the year after the declaration. That is shared planning, in writing, today. Now scale it: the same binding framework running procurement from Lisbon to Tallinn, contracts written together and honoured together, because every parliament signed. That is the European army in kernel form, built the way the North builds.

Now the call. The EU governments and the European Council should open negotiations on a European Defence Cooperation Agreement modelled on the Nordic one: a binding legal framework for joint procurement, shared planning and civil-military cooperation, compatible with NATO from the first draft. The Nordic ministers said such an agreement will demonstrate commitment to the Alliance. Put it to the parliaments now, before the next round of NATO's planning is settled. Start where the worry bites least, with joint procurement and civil resilience, and let the combat plans follow. And you, young European reading this in a country whose defence budget is a rounding error next to the task: this is the generation that finishes the job the North began. Write to your minister, and tell them to back what the Nordics agreed to start.