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Security and defence

The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) is an integral part of EU foreign policy. Through its military operations and civilian missions, the EU has contributed to regional and global stability. Since it's inception, the CSDP has responded to a shifting regional security context. It has played a vital role in crisis management in the EU's near and wider neighbourhood but it is also an essential part of the EU's broader approach to the protection of Europe and capacity building.

Although the Lisbon Treaty consolidated the EU's crisis management apparatus, the EU Global Strategy has set a new level of ambition for EU defence. In addition to the CSDP playing an operational role in the EU's integrated approach to crises, the EU Global Strategy has stressed the need for the EU to become a more capable and effective defence actor. Initiatives such as the European Defence Fund, the coordinated annual defence review (CARD) and more coherent financing for EU operations and capacity building efforts are all aimed at supporting the EU's strategic autonomy and the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base. The EUISS continues to support the development of CSDP through outreach activities and expert publications.

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    15July 2009
    EU security and defence: core documents 2008
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    This chronological compilation brings together official documents on European security and defence, including statements, decisions and other material from the relevant EU structures. It is a valuable reference tool for all those interested in the EU’s common foreign and security policy, allowing for quick identification of the key issues on the agenda for the year 2008.

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    01April 2009
    Security Sector Reform in Afghanistan: the EU’s contribution
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    The EU engages in aspects of security sector reform through EUPOL Afghanistan, the police mission launched in 2007, and through the European Commission’s contributions to justice reform in the country. Based on an analysis of past efforts at police reform by the EU and other European and international actors, this paper identifies a set of internal and external coordination challenges that hamper mission success.

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    16March 2009
    From Suez to Shanghai: the European Union and Eurasian maritime security
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    This paper looks at the emerging geopolitical situation in the Eurasian coastal zone, concentrating on the geostrategic activities of China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. This zone, it argues, is both critically important for the EU in terms of shipping for manufactured goods and energy supplies, and likely to experience great power competition and general disorder over the coming decades.

  • 09March 2009
    Presentation of ISS Report nº 5

    European Security Strategy 2003-2008 Building on common interests

  • 04February 2009
    Cyber security: what role for CFSP?

    The seminar’s goal was to initiate a first discussion on the implications for the EU of the cyber security agenda and related threats; to raise subject awareness; and to identify a number of critical issues for the possible development of a policy under the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).

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    01February 2009
    The European Security Strategy 2003-2008: building on common interests
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    With contributions from

    This report follows on from the series of seminars organised in 2008 by the EUISS on the European Security Strategy. It contributes to the debate on policy options generated by the December 2008 European Council, which put forward guidelines for the implementation of the Strategy in the coming years, and looks at how to increase the consistency and coherence of EU external action.

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    01January 2009
    CSDP Newsletter No.7
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    EULEX Kosovo is finally up and running after a long planning phase. It began operations on 9 December 2008 and has been breaking new ground for the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) as the EU's largest civilian mission.

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    31December 2008
    The EU, NATO and European Defence: a slow train coming
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    This paper examines the proposals on European defence under discussion during the 2008 French EU Presidency. While Americans and Europeans alike support stronger EU-NATO cooperation, the output has so far been unsatisfactory. The paper examines initiatives for a stronger, more unitary European security structure.

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    19November 2008
    Towards a European Defence Market
    Edited by
    With contributions from

    EU governments are gradually coming around to the idea that they need to open up their defence markets. The European Commission is currently proposing new procurement and trade directives aimed at streamlining defence market legislation. The proposed directives would open up the defence market, improve European cooperation on armaments and lead to a more competitive European defence industry.

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    04November 2008
    Avoiding confrontational bipolarity
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    This issue of the EUISS newsletter looks at the need to avoid confrontational bipolarity in the wake Georgia conflict, assesses prospects for a regional solution to the Afghanistan conflict, and examines ESDP ten years after the St Malo Anglo-French summit. It also gives a round up of the Institute’s recent seminar series on the European Security Strategy, as well as the latest publications and press clippings.

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    01June 1995
    The Baltic States: security and defence after independence
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    Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the three Baltic states - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - have made significant strides in consolidating their independence, putting themselves not only on the geographical map of Europe, but also on the mental map of Western policy-makers.

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    01November 1994
    Peacekeeping in the Soviet Successor States
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    The issue of crisis management and conflict prevention in post-communist Europe is an issue which has already been addressed by the Institute in earlier Chaillot Papers, and this paper takes the discussion further by looking at the problems arising over peacekeeping in the member states of the CIS.

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    01October 1994
    The implications of the Yugoslav crisis for Western Europe's foreign relations
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    The Yugoslav crisis, posing for over three years now a challenge to the crisis-management ability of the international community, it has influenced the restructuring of post-Cold War security relations and has complicated Western Europe's development of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and search for a new role in international affairs.

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    01June 1994
    Preventing armed conflict in Europe: lessons from recent experience
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    This Chaillot Paper on conflict prevention was discussed in draft form at a meeting in the Institute on 17-18 March 1994 at which a number of those with first-hand experience of the work of the various international organisations discussed in this paper took part.

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    01February 1994
    Ukraine, Russia and European security: implications for Western policy
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    Among the range of problems which have arisen following the breakup of the Soviet Union, those of Ukraine and its relations with Russia, particularly in the nuclear field, are among the most difficult. They present particular dilemmas for West European security policy-makers endeavouring to develop a satisfactory mix of approaches to the two countries.

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    01October 1993
    War and peace: European conflict prevention
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    For more than two years, wars and atrocities all too reminiscent of another epoch have set in - perhaps permanently - in the heart of Europe. Yet the Continent is for the most part focused towards its prosperity, its restored security and the extension of fundamental liberties. This coexistence of peace and war is not attributable solely to the collapse of the former Yugoslavia.

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    01September 1993
    Parameters of European security
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    Professor Dieter Mahncke, the Deputy Director of the Planning Staff of the German Defence Ministry in Bonn, was a visiting fellow at the Institute for the last quarter of 1992. We were pleased to welcome him and were stimulated by his many contributions to our work. The end of the Cold War has meant that very many of the concepts on which institutions and structures for security in Western Europe were based have had to be re-examined.

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    01September 1993
    Nationalism, internationalism and the European defence market
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    The Institute has had a small study group working on problems of European defence industry over the last three years, under the direction of Juan de Luis.

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    01June 1993
    The special Franco-German security relationship in the 1990s
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    The Institute was pleased to welcome Peter Schmidt, one of the leading German scholars of European security integration from the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Ebenhausen, as a visitor during the early part of 1992. This paper, which was begun while he was with us and completed subsequently, formed the basis for a number of discussions within the Institute and we are now glad to be able to make it available to a wider audience.

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    01May 1993
    Hungary and its neighbours
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    In Europe the collapse of the communist system has given rise to great aspirations to democracy and civil rights. At the same time, new tensions are accompanying this move to democracy, whether in connection with the right to self-determination, minority rights, or the dissolution of former compound states - the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.

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