Soft Law and the Single Market: Measuring the Impact of the EDA’s Code of Conduct on Marketizing Defence Procurement in the European Union

Sammanfattning: After several decades of collaborative arms procurement conducted on juste retour principles the Member States of the European Union are moving towards market based solutions in their attempts to maintain a competitive and sustainable defence technological and industrial base on the continent. This paper seeks to conduct a baseline study on the impact of the European Defence Agency’s 2005/6 Code of Conduct on Defence Procurement, the first explicitly market based measures enacted. The research design employs mixed methods in the following manner: A) a preliminary statistical study into the volume of intra-European trade in conventional weapons from 1994-2011, and B) a series of semi-structured interviews with policy makers, as well as policy practitioners from both the supply and demand side of the defence procurement equation. Results indicate that at best the measures have had a small impact on marketization. Although the initial results of the preliminary statistical study are decisive, equifinality in causation is ultimately difficult to attribute to the Code of Conduct as many complex dynamics ultimately affect the trends observed.