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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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  • 01October 2001
    11 September: Security and Defence revisited
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    Recent terrorist attacks in New York and Washington raise the question whether similar attacks could also take place in Europe. Is the threat of catastrophic terrorism the same for EU members as for the US? Or does it create different zones of security and vulnerability within NATO and the EU?...

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    01October 2001
    Reconciling the prince's two 'arms'. Internal-external security policy coordination in the European Union
    By

    The blurring of the distinction between internal and external security, and the connected impulse towards better coordination between the correspondent policy fields, are among the fundamental structural changes in international relations that have occurred during the last decades. Such overall trends were accentuated and made particularly evident in Western Europe by progress in supranational integration.

  • 27September 2001
    L’Europe doit repenser l’Union
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    L’énorme cacophonie stratégique qui n’en finit pas d’émerger des ruines du World Trade Center affectera aussi les règles et la dynamique traditionnelles de la construction européenne. Moteurs d’intégration accrue, les attentats du 11 septembre le seront au moins pour trois raisons.

  • 01September 2001
    11 Septembre : impact sur la PESD
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    Il est bien évidemment difficile de tirer des conclusions définitives sur l’impact des attentats du 11 septembre. Toutefois, s’agissant de la PESD, trois séries d’effets sont envisageables, étant entendu qu’ils peuvent être parfois contradictoires entre eux et selon que l’analyse se place sur le court ou le long terme

  • 01September 2001
    Enlargement and European security after 11 September
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    What consequences may the terrorist acts of 11 September have for EU enlargement? Will they facilitate it or make it more complicated? And what is likely to be their overall impact on pan-European security?

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    02July 2001
    Nuclear weapons: a new Great Debate
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    In nuclear matters more than in any other political area, perceptions have the force of law. The most concrete nuclear technology would count for little without the extremely sophisticated theories of uncertainty that form the basis of any nuclear deterrence strategy. Yet for the last few years both the technological and intellectual worlds of deterrence, as mankind has known it since 1945, have been in turmoil on all continents.

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    02May 2001
    From St-Malo to Nice: European defence: core documents
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    In the two years between St-Malo and Nice, the character of the European Union changed. What was previously unthinkable ‘at Fifteen’ became an objective agreed by all member states: the inclusion in the Union’s legitimate competencies of a common security and defence policy, in other words its acquisition of strategic responsibility in post-Cold War crisis management.

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    01May 2001
    Le MTCR face à la proliferation des missiles
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    Le Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) est à l’heure actuelle le seul dispositif politico-juridique international de lutte contre la prolifération des missiles. Il a été mis sur pied en 1987 par les 7 pays les plus industrialisés, et regroupe aujourd’hui 33 Etats.

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    01May 2001
    A common European export policy for defence and dual-use items?
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    In Europe, arms and dual-use exports raise complex questions. They fall between two policy spheres that are organised in a distinctly contrasting manner. On the one hand, they are an intrinsic part of commercial policy that lies within the exclusive competence of the European Community (EC). On the other hand, they come under the aegis of security and defence policy, a jealously guarded area of responsibility of the EU member states.

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    01May 2001
    Coherence for security policy: debates - cases- assessments
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    This Occasional Paper stems from a series of meetings of an ISS Task Force on ‘The Coherence of CFSP’ held in Paris between October 2000 and April 2001. Task Forces are small groups of experts and officials from member States, international bodies and think tanks that convene periodically to discuss a given topic or policy area. They usually include a ‘core group’ of members and other participants that join in according to the specific focus of each meeting.

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