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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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  • 28October 2008
    Opening up European defence markets: the challenges ahead
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    It has become a cliché to observe that Europe’s armies need many new military capabilities. But EU governments are still doing very little to remedy the problem. European armed forces struggled to fight alongside the US during the Kosovo war in 1999 because they lacked sophisticated equipment.

    As a result EU governments signed up to a number of “headline goals” to improve their military prowess. But it is hard to find much concrete evidence of real improvements in European military equipment over the last decade.

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    23October 2008
    EU Security and Defence: Core Documents 2007 (Vol. VIII)
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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 2007.

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    10October 2008
    Education and training for European defence equipment programmes
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    Cooperative programmes do not have a very positive image in some EU Member States because they have often implied delays, unanticipated costs, and long rounds of negotiations between partnering nations. Participating in a multinational programme without a shared approach and common understanding is bound to lead to problems.

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    25September 2008
    L’Union et les armes légères et de petit calibre (ALPC)
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    En mettant la priorité sur la prévention, l’Union européenne pourrait maximiser l’usage de ses ressources et le soutien des capacités des gouvernements et des sociétés pour lutter contre le fléau des armes légères, explique Damien Helly, chargé de recherche de l’IESUE sur l’Afrique, la prévention des conflits et de la gestion des crises.

  • 18September 2008
    Strengthening ESDP: the EU's approach to international security

    This seminar was the third in the EUISS’s 2008 series on the implementation of the European Security Strategy. Taking place in Helsinki on 18-18 September, it focused on the EU’s security and defence policy (ESDP).

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    01September 2008
    EU-UN cooperation in military crisis management: the experience of EUFOR RD Congo in 2006
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    Since its first autonomous military operation in the Congo in 2003, the EU has increased its role in military crisis management around the world. This paper looks at the often disappointing results of EU-UN cooperation, using the example of the EU’s later operation in the Congo in 2006...

  • 06June 2008
    The EU and global governance: rules, power and priorities

    The first seminar in the series addressing 'European Interests and Strategic Options' was held in Rome on 5 and 6 June 2008 in cooperation with the Istituto Affari Internazionali and addressed the Union’s goal to develop ‘an international order based on effective multilateralism’.

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    28March 2008
    Why Kosovo?
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    The newest ESDP mission to Kosovo is a display of unity by the European Union, focused on the goal of ensuring stability grounded on the rule of law, including strict respect for minority rights, in the newly-independent state. The EU must achieve its objective while remaining a magnet for Kosovars and at the same time for the Serbs.

  • 14March 2008
    European Security and Defence Policy: Dialogue between the EU and its Mediterranean partners

    This high-level seminar held in Rabat in partnership with the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation examined Morocco's relationship with ESDP, including Moroccan involvement in EU and other peacekeeping missions to date, and priorities for cooperation between the EU and its Mediterranean partners.

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    03March 2008
    Missile Defence in Europe: the political and security dimensions
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    The debate over missile defence in Europe is likely to remain on the political agenda for the foreseeable future as discussions evolve on both sides of the Atlantic. This policy brief provides basic background information on missile defence and highlights some of the principal political and security aspects associated with missile defence in Europe.

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    01November 1992
    European integration and nuclear deterrence after the Cold War
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    Since 1945, the existence of nuclear weapons has profoundly modified our thinking on strategic issues. Nowhere was that more true than in the Europe of the Cold War. With the end of the Cold War and the important progress made in the process of European integration, the roles of nuclear weapons and more generally deterrence in Europe need a new examination.

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    01November 1991
    European security integration in the 1990s
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    As the third of its Chaillot Papers the Institute is pleased to publish this essay by Dr Ian Gambles on European security integration in the 1990s. In a period in which we are having to examine radical restructuring of security in Europe following the historic changes of the last two years, Dr Gambles' paper provides an important reflection on some of the conceptual underpinnings for security analysis in Europe.

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    01March 1991
    European security across the Mediterranean
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    Whether the countries of the Mediterranean littoral are linked by special bonds of solidarity is and will remain a much-debated question. After the Second World War, anti-imperialist and non-aligned thinking advocated such solidarity on the grounds that countries as diverse as Egypt and Italy, or Spain and Algeria, were none the less equally subject to political and economic domination by the more advanced countries of Northern Europe and North America.

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    01March 1991
    European defence: why not the Twelve?
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    I am pleased that the first of the Institute's Chaillot Papers, which are intended to bring work undertaken in the Institute to a wider audience, should be a paper by my deputy, Nicole Gnesotto, on the current debate on security structures for Western Europe. When the Institute for Security Studies was established in July 1990, it took as one of its primary tasks work on the definition of a European security identity.

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