The Commission’s Wallet: How the European Defence Fund is Shaping Autonomy after Ukraine

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally altered the calculus of European security, intensifying debates on strategic autonomy (Fiott, 2023). Moving beyond traditional intergovernmental analyses of the CSDP, this paper examines how the European Commission is leveraging financial tools to steer defence integration, a process signalling a potential shift towards supranational governance in this domain (Brogger, 2025). It focuses on the European Defence Fund (EDF) as the critical site where the Commission’s role is being redefined (Håkansson, 2021). The paper asks how has the war empowered the Commission to repurpose the EDF from an instrument of industrial innovation into a strategic tool for "European strategic sovereignty" (Fiott, 2020), and what does this reveal about the supranationalisation of defence? Through a qualitative analysis of post-2022 EDF work programmes and Commission communications (e.g., EDIS, 2024), this study seeks to trace a deliberate reorientation towards funding capabilities that address urgent wartime gaps while embedding ‘open strategic autonomy’ as a core criteria. Theoretically, it engages debates on whether such change reflects functional spillover (Howorth, 2014) or strategic intergovernmentalism (Moravcsik, 1998). Preliminary findings suggest a hybrid model. Functional pressures created by the war have been seized by the Commission to expand its role via the EDF, thereby shaping a more integrated defence technological and industrial base. This research illuminates the power of the budget as a mechanism in Europe’s defence ecosystem and offers a fresh perspective on the EU’s contested path toward autonomy, even as political and cost constraints persist (Mader et al., 2024).