EU Society: 6th Meeting (May 16, 2023) > EU Society at KUGSIS

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After Greeting the members, Jaehyun started his presentation with introducing the ROK-Poland arms deal from 2022 to the members. He explained what kind of weapons Poland is buying from ROK and that because of this deal Poland might join the KF-21 weapons development program (which aims to create weapons and fighter jets). There are several reasons to why Poland chose South Korea to but weapons. Firstly, Poland has difficulties in modernizing its military. A lot of its weapons still stem from the soviet era and the weapons have become difficult to maintain. Secondly, Poland’s geopolitical position pushes it to arm up since Poland fears a possible aggression from Russia. Even though Poland tried to modernize its army from European suppliers, it faced issues. Modernizing would take too much time since the weapons manufacturers in Europe are currently at their limit and can not supply faster. This problem came up after the end of the cold war and the disarmament wave in Europe which led to a decrease in weapons production. This resupply can not happen fast in a short period of time. The presenter also went over the history of the European army idea and how it is implemented today. A short overview of the CSDP (common security and defense policy) was given. There were new attempts after 2010 to establish a European army but this project is still faced with challenges.

The discussion round was started with the question if Germany could succeed in re-arming its forces. Discussants mentioned the public opinion constraints in Germany about re-arming but said that Germany could succeed in the future even if its lacking behind this goal currently. The second question was about if a European army can become true one day. Members didn’t believe that this could be possible since a lot of countries prefer to work on their own in military and defense and don’t want to share information or resources with other powers.

After the discussion, members of the EU society were invited to have dinner together.