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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 1997
    Sweden's Security Policy: Engagement - the Middle Way
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    Since 1814, Sweden's security policy has been anchored to varying degrees of neutrality. Throughout this timeperiod, its interpretation has been flexible and trademarked by an ability to adjust to different external conditions; effectively enabling the country to combine participation in international affairs with an adherence to non-alignment.

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    01October 1997
    The Bosnian war and the new world order
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    The war in Bosnia has witnessed a broad swing in the moods of the "international community" and of European nations particularly. In the wake of the end of the Cold War and of the victory in the Gulf War, expectations run high at the outbreak that collective security would have been able to deal with regional disturbances.

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    01July 1997
    European Public Opinion and Security Policy
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    With the end of the Cold War, security has acquired very different components. In Europe, it has broadened to include conflict prevention and crisis management, in an attempt to substitute persuasion for enforcement. It has essentially become a political rather than a military concept whose features are foresight, transparency and accountability, and which combines political and economic as well as military measures.

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    01June 1997
    Towards a European Weapons Procurement Process
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    Changes in the post-Cold War strategic landscape have, among other things, affected WEU countries' Defence Industrial and Technological Base (DITB). The further evolution of WEU, with respect to the recently defined EU reform and that impending in NATO, heightens the importance of solving the problems hampering European armaments cooperation, which directly affects WEU's operational capabilities.

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    01February 1996
    The Democratic Control of Armed Forces
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    Rudolf Joó, a former Hungarian Deputy Minister of Defence sets out his thoughts on the subject, starting from the successes and difficulties encountered on the path to reform that he helped promote and widening the study to a more general context.

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    01December 1995
    WEU'S role in crisis management and conflict resolution in sub-Saharan Africa
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    This Chaillot Paper represents a foray into a field that is not obviously in the mainstream of WEU's mandate, especially for those who still think that WEU should not stray too far from traditional European tasks. Yet Europe cannot decline the wider, global mission of preventing crises and building stability wherever necessary.

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    01November 1995
    Defence markets and industries in Europe: time for political decisions?
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    The future of defence industries and markets is one of the most complex subjects on the agenda of European integration, as the on-going debate on the European Armaments Agency demonstrates. In this Chaillot Paper, Pierre De Vestel, a researcher at the Institute of European Studies of the Free University of Brussels, analyses the situation in the European defence industrial and technological base, develops various scenarios and makes some concrete proposals for a future European defence industrial policy.

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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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