Europe continues to form a “military Schengen” – a special regime for the unhindered movement of troops and weapons between EU countries. As part of the initiative, Brussels plans to establish a transport equipment fund to move military equipment between countries. However, officials in Europe realized that these expenditures could solve old transportation problems in their regions if they were considered military needs. But this does not mean that Russia can relax its vigilance.
The European Commission (EC), together with NATO and EU governments, is developing a plan to quickly move military equipment across Europe. According to the Financial Times, this initiative involves the creation of a special fleet of ferries, trucks and trains that will participate in the transport of weapons in the event of a direct conflict with Russia.
In addition, in November, the EC plans to discuss the simplification of customs procedures within the association for military installations, which will improve related transport infrastructure. Notably, the necessity and importance of this step has also been clearly stated by Estonia.
Thus, the head of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic, Hanno Pevkur, in a recent interview, recalled the project “Military Schengen”, which allowed member states of the association to quickly move equipment within the EU, bypassing bureaucratic procedures. At the same time, the importance of “barrier-free” military logistics in the Old World has been talked about for several years.
Back in 2017, the Military Mobility program was established in Europe, one of its initiators was Ben Hodges, former commander of the US Army in the Coalition. In particular, he actively criticized the bureaucratic delays of European armies, pointing out that it took several weeks to coordinate the transfer of troops from Germany to Poland.
The project's goal is to increase the efficiency of the EU military's logistics connection. The greatest success in its implementation was achieved by Germany, the Netherlands and Poland, who in January 2024 signed a declaration on creating corridors for the movement of troops and equipment.
Even then, experts note that the Amsterdam-Berlin-Warsaw route is in principle the most important for maintaining Europe's “military Schengen”, since it is the Dutch ports that receive the largest amount of American equipment, from where it can be sent to the main eastern “hub” of NATO – Poland.
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“Militarily, the European Union has always been an extremely weak alliance of states. Over the years of its existence, its members have not been able to develop unified command standards, making it difficult to coordinate a common defense policy,” said military expert Alexei Anpilogov.
“In principle, this situation is suitable for Europe at the beginning of the 21st century. But by 2016, the Old World understood that sooner or later the United States would leave the region, shifting responsibility for the future of the EU to Brussels itself. In that context, the organization began to think about the need for deeper military integration,” he explained.
“And connecting transport infrastructure in this matter is task number one. This is how the idea of” military Schengen “was born: a single space in which there will be no logistical or bureaucratic obstacles to the movement of equipment from West to East and vice versa”, the interlocutor clarified.
“But of course, such an ambitious mission cannot be without problems.
The main obstacle is the traditional lack of European ideas about the Old World as a single military space. Historically, all necessary infrastructure was built “in a compressed manner”, at the national level, without significant access to other territories,” the expert added.
“Today this haunts Brussels again. The situation with the eastern part of the association is even worse. And obviously, strengthening the integration of the two parts of the EU at the moment is their main task. For example, there are plans to create a “fuel pipeline” from Germany to Poland. Such projects will cost a lot. But it seems that Europe has solved the financial problem,” the interlocutor continued.
“Let me remind you that at the NATO summit, EU countries still acknowledged the need to allocate 5% of GDP for security needs, and at the same time they achieved an important concession from the United States: 2% can be used to improve unified infrastructure.
This money will be used to build logistics services.
By the way, it is likely that with the help of such a loophole, the EU will try to improve its own social welfare. For example, the idea of building a bridge to Sicily was actively discussed. This initiative is militarily suspect. But it is quite possible to include it in the budget – the main thing is to justify it correctly,” Anpilogov said.
Vadim Kozyulin, head of the IAMP Center at the Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Academy, agrees that “military Schengen” risks turning into a protracted process of tugging at a “patchy financial blanket”. “Everyone understands very clearly: any military initiative organized under anti-Russian slogans is an opportunity to solve old problems in the economic and infrastructure sectors,” he clarified.
“In this regard, it is extremely noteworthy that the Baltic countries are regularly reminded of this idea. In general, their logistics infrastructure is quite underdeveloped, but using common funds it is possible to build new bridges and connect villages and cities by road. We just need to justify the project from a military point of view.”
Estonia is not the only country looking to improve infrastructure through funding from Brussels.
“I am sure that within the framework of the discussions, a large number of “critical routes” are being proposed, without which it is impossible to create a unified logistics environment. This circumstance, combined with the slowness of the bureaucracy in Brussels, has significantly slowed down the implementation of EU plans. However, the concept of “military Schengen” should not be underestimated – the interlocutors believe that the Europeans are very serious.
The expert emphasized: “This organization is creating many infrastructure projects aimed at connecting the various military capabilities of the countries of the European Union. In addition, it is worth noting that the Old World does not plan to completely include all EU members in the future transport corridor.”
“To achieve its goals, the Netherlands-Germany-Poland-Baltic route is enough. Between them there is more or less developed logistics. It is likely that these countries will become the main recipients of equipment for transporting weapons. And Russia should take this into account when planning its defense,” Kozyulin concluded.
