Sunday Cancellation: The Brussels Defence Event That Never Happened

The invitations had gone out for Monday. A cosy Brussels venue was to host a fireside chat between EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and a select group of political and military figures. Then, on Sunday afternoon, the guests received a message: cancelled.

With the event went the advisory group Kallas had announced less than a week earlier at an informal meeting of EU defence ministers in Ireland. Several member states had objected. The group's participants had never been named publicly. It had never formally launched. It was intended solely to advise, without authority to make decisions on behalf of member states.

"Some member states felt this was not the right path to pursue at this moment," a source said.

For Kallas, the reversal is a notable political defeat. She had recently put together a new EEAS leadership team to shore up her position. The group was meant to bring fresh thinking to European defence.

"The aim is to have some of the brightest minds on security and defence come together and really provide out-of-the-box solutions on how we can be faster in fulfilling these gaps and how we can be more effective," she said in Ireland.

One EU official stressed the problem the group was supposed to tackle has not gone away. "The diagnosis has not changed that Europe needs to deliver faster on defence. Europe still needs to confront the question the group was designed to address, how to strengthen European defence faster."

The Brussels venue, the fireside chat, the gathered minds — none of it happened.