You are here

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.

Pages

  • 29November 2012
    After austerity: futures for Europe's defence industry
    By

    Europe's defence industry currently remains fragmented both across countries and business sectors. Yet given the downsizing of defence budgets, greater consolidation can now be expected through a mix of Europe, NATO, extra-EU and purely national solutions.

  • Download image
    12July 2012
    Integrating the EU defence market: an easy way to soften the impact of military spending cuts?
    By

    As many European governments introduce their biggest defence budget cuts in years, the impact on their collective military capabilities may be lessened by exploiting two directives designed to integrate the EU defence market.

  • Download image
    09July 2012
    Are Europeans a better transatlantic security partner than meets the eye?
    By

    he latest wave of European military spending cuts is swelling the ranks of Americans who believe that Europeans are not contributing enough to global security. But this assessment is too harsh. It is true that Europeans spend less on defence than their American counterparts. They have also been less willing to use force in recent years. But the US itself is reassessing the merit of its military interventions over the last decade.

  • Download full analysis
    12June 2012
    Transatlantic strategies in the Asia Pacific
    By

    For the moment, the US presence in the Asia Pacific region provi­des regional and extra-regional actors, including the EU, with security and stability that enable free naviga­tion, trade flows, peaceful development, and avoidance of violent conflicts or confrontations. But how can the EU assume a more active and strategic role in the region?

  • 08June 2012
    The impact of the EU Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2002-2012

    This seminar, jointly organised by the EU Police Mission (EUPM) and the EUISS and held in Sarajevo on the 7-8 June, marked 10 years of EU civilian crisis management in the Western Balkans and examined the impact of the EUPM in Bosnia and Herzegovina and lessons learned for the future of CFSP/CSDP.

  • 18March 2012
    Visit of US Journalism Students to Brussels

    In March 2012 the EUISS and the EU Delegation to the United States organised a briefing session for a group of aspiring American journalists in Brussels. Following this event, the EUISS, in partnership with the Medill School at the Northwestern University in Chicago, published the best work of selected students here online.

  • Download image
    08January 2012
    Toward a new Euro-Atlantic security framework
    By

    In November 2011, Moscow threatened to deploy tactical nuclear weaponry in Kaliningrad in response to US Missile Defense (MD) radar systems to be deployed in Turkey. Although Washington argued that MD systems are intended to counter Iranian missile systems, Moscow still regards the fourth phase of the Phased Adaptive Approach as potentially threatening to Russia itself. Moscow additionally stated that it might quit New START after the US dropped out of the adapted Conventional Force in Europe (CFE) treaty.

  • 16September 2011
    Beyond terrorism and privacy: a transatlantic agenda for global security?

    What strategic direction should Euro-Atlantic security cooperation take? And what are the major challenges that need to be addressed? This roundtable, taking place in Brussels on 16 September 2011, reflected upon these crucial issues faced on both sides of the Atlantic.

  • 20July 2011
    European Union Security and Defence. Core Documents 2010 — Vol. XI
    By

    Each year the Core Documents series provides the Institute’s readers with as inclusive a reference work as possible on the EU’s decisions and actions in the field of security and defence.

  • Download document
    20May 2011
    Perspektiven für die europäische Verteidigung 2020
    By

    Wie wird die CSVP in 2020 aussehen? In dieser dritten, auf Deutsch übersetzten Edition des Buches „What ambitions for European defence in 2020?“ zeichnen die Autoren ihre Vision für die Weiterentwicklung ziviler, wie auch militärischer Kapazitäten.

Pages

Pages

  • Download document
    02January 2001
    Between cooperation and competition: the transatlantic defence market
    By

    A few months ago, the Institute published a Chaillot Paper by Burkard Schmitt dealing specifically with the new industrial integration strategies of the big European armaments groups (Chaillot Paper 40, ‘From cooperation to integration: defence and aerospace industries in Europe’, July 2000). This Chaillot Paper examines the prospects for transatlantic cooperation in this field, and also the constraints on it.

  • Download document
    01November 2000
    European integration and defence: the ultimate challenge?
    By

    Since St-Malo, three revolutions in European military affairs have been under way: the first concerns Britain, the second the process of European political integration and the third the actual management of security in the post-Cold War world. That is the main thrust of this Chaillot Paper, whose author, Jolyon Howorth is without doubt one of the foremost historians and specialists in matters of European security.

  • Download document
    01September 2000
    European defence: making it work
    By

    For decades, the question of European defence had the dual and somewhat strange quality of being both a necessary condition for and an obstacle to political deepening of the European Union. It was a condition because only the possession of a minimum of military means would ensure the credibility and effectiveness of any international action by the Union, something that, in French rhetoric, was often epitomised as a demand for a Europe puissance.

  • Download document
    01September 2000
    National Missile Defence and the future of nuclear policy
    By

    The first session focused on threat perceptions and threat assessments. The key question was whether a threat exists that justifies NMD deployment. Do the so-called ‘countries of concern’ really intent to threaten the US homeland and, even more importantly, do they have the financial and the technological means to scale up their existing arsenal to true intercontinental range?

  • Download document
    01July 2000
    From cooperation to integration: defence and aerospace industries in Europe
    By

    Over the last two years, two processes have considerably modified the European strategic landscape: the development of a common security and defence policy within the European Union on the one hand, and accelerated restructuring of defence industries on the other.

  • Download document
    01July 2000
    Paris Transatlantic Forum: European defence - European and American perceptions
    By

    What was of particular interest in this seminar was that it combined both a discussion of the technical, immediate aspects of European defence and a more general reflection on developments in American policy and the direction being taken by European construction.

  • Download document
    01June 2000
    The RMA - Europe can keep in step
    By

    The transatlantic defence community drew divergent conclusions from NATO’s Operation Allied Force in Kosovo. Many observers asserted that the operation showed the European allies to be irremediably behind the United States in applying decisive new forms of advanced technology warfare.

  • Download document
    01June 2000
    The Contact Group and its impact on the European institutional structure
    By

    Among the institutions which emerged during the crisis management phase in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, the so-called Balkan Contact Group turned out to be the innovation with the greatest impact on European institutional structures.

  • Download document
    01April 2000
    The United States and European defence
    By

    The more headway the Europeans make in the setting up of a true European Union defence capability, the more voices are heard in the United States that analyse, question, challenge or fear this new European ambition. Nothing, moreover, could be more natural, given that, in their serious intent, their scope and their unanimity, the decisions taken at Cologne and Helsinki signal a clear departure from the EU’s long tradition of politico-strategic non-existence.

  • Download document
    01March 2000
    The future of the Euro-Mediterranean security dialogue
    By

    The WEU Institute for Security Studies organised a seminar on ‘The future of the Euro-Mediterranean security dialogue’, on 13-14 January 2000 in Paris. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the possibilities of enhancing the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership’s political and security chapter, including the establishment of a military dialogue within the Barcelona Process.

Pages