The European Defence Fund (EDF) has been interpreted by a number of scholars as a step beyond intergovernmental cooperation and towards the introduction of supranationalism in defence policy. We suggest that past developments in space policy can be a guide for developments in the defence area given the functional dependencies between the two fields and their institutional similarities. Based on this, we believe that the Commission will be unable to convert its new authority over the EDF into actual influence over use of force. On the contrary, the EDF may signal that European defence industrial policy is increasingly motivated by civilian and predominantly commercial considerations, dissociated from the operational objectives of national defence policies. Like the EDF, the European Union’s (EU’s) space programmes involve the supranational financing of militarily relevant capabilities. We argue that Member States have accepted supranationalism in space policy insofar as the Commission was able to civilianize matters of industrial governance and keep them separate from the conduct of military operations. We show that the EU implemented civilian programmes in areas that were otherwise driven by national militaries. In instances where civilianization was impossible, Member States’ security interests are preserved through intergovernmental modes of decision-making, even within purportedly ‘community’-driven processes. Member States have also retained significant control over future developments by exploiting a web of overlapping institutions and hazy task allocation. spillover, neofunctionalism, space policy, European Defence Fund, defence industry, industrial policy

In recent years, both inside and outside France, scholars and policymakers have emphasized a small and declining French influence on European politics and the political direction of the European Union (EU). By contrast, in 2022, at the end of President Emmanuel Macron’s first term in office, the EU increasingly follows French preferences and ideas. We argue that this renewed French clout is due to the interplay of factors located at different levels of government: a centralized political system and careful preparation of policy objectives at the domestic level, together with a more balanced bilateral relationship with Germany and several exogenous shocks hitting the EU, enabled the French President to upload national policy priorities to the European level. We combine a longer-term perspective, which considers the formulation and pursuit of national strategies, with moments of crisis altering the EU’s status quo and leading member states to promote change. We demonstrate France’s influence on EU politics based on developments in three policy fields, namely fiscal policy, competition policy, and defense industrial policy.

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The ‘practice turn’ in European Union (EU) studies has shown that everyday actions, notably discursive practices, are consequential for producing European integration. Yet, an important development has been overlooked by scholars: the emergence of a ‘European sovereignty’ discourse in EU politics. Since President Emmanuel Macron's Sorbonne speech in September 2017, the EU policy of the French government has been structured around the affirmed objective of building ‘European sovereignty’. It supposes that the EU should become more geopolitical and not shy away from defending its own interests in an increasingly disorderly and hostile world. This article enquires into the objectives that President Macron and the French government have sought to realise by introducing this discourse into EU politics. We argue that ‘European sovereignty’ is a discursive practice that instrumentalises security threats to the EU in order to legitimise France's economic policy objectives, most notably the reform of EU competition policy. Our findings derive not only from publicly available documents and speeches but also 72 semi‐directed interviews.

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