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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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  • 08April 2014
    Quelle contribution du militaire à l’approche globale de l’action extérieure de l’UE ?

    On 8 April 2014, the EUISS co-hosted the second seminar of a series of events on the role of the military in CSDP with the French MOD think tank, l'Institut de Recherche stratégique de l’Ecole militaire (IRSEM).

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    21March 2014
    No TTIP-ing point for European defence?
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    Although the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will not directly cover to the defence sector, dual-use goods and technologies are increasingly blurring the lines between defence and civilian commercial realms. What impact will the TTIP have on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that operate in the European defence sector, and what of the future of the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base?

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    07March 2014
    CSDP: getting third states on board
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    Presented in the context of a broader CFSP agenda, this Brief provides an overview of the valuable contributions and political support by partner countries to CSDP missions to date. How can this process now be best employed to bolster the overall legitimacy of the EU’s international security role?

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    07March 2014
    Defence budgets: Europe's Maginot moment?
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    As EU member states try to juggle decreasing budgets and increasing costs in the face of an ever more unstable neighbourhood, is Europe trying to maintain its defences by cutting everything that makes them viable? This Brief suggests a few answers by looking at some of the latest data available on defence.

  • 06March 2014
    Managing crisis, building peace: EU and US comprehensive approaches

    On 6 March 2014, the EUISS, in cooperation with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, organised a seminar in Washington, D.C. to discuss the place of peace-building in respective EU and US institutional structures and broader strategic considerations.

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    24January 2014
    EUFOR RCA Bangui: 'defence matters'
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    With the decision to launch EUFOR RCA Bangui, EU member states appear to be displaying a willingness to inject new momentum into crisis management in sub-Saharan Africa. But how likely is it that the situation in the CAR will be sufficiently stable in six months to allow the EU to declare victory and hand over to AU forces or the UN?

  • 15January 2014
    What contribution of the military to the EU’s Comprehensive Approach to external action?

    On 15 January, 2014, the EUISS hosted the first seminar of a series of events co-organised with the French MOD think tank, l'Institut de Recherche stratégique de l’Ecole militaire (IRSEM).

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    20December 2013
    European defence – to be continued
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    In the final alert of 2013, EUISS Director Antonio Missiroli offers his take on the Conclusions of the European Council on defence. Can its outcome be considered a turning point for European defence? And what developments lie on the horizon of a debate that is far from over?

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    19December 2013
    Peacebuilding in 3D: EU and US approaches
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    This Chaillot Paper examines the concept of peacebuilding and the emergence in recent years of a comprehensive approach to conflict management that combines both civilian and military instruments. It highlights the importance of peacebuilding as a foreign policy goal and analyses US and EU approaches to the issue, focusing on the likely future trajectory of transatlantic cooperation in this area.

  • 10December 2013
    The ESS@10: revisiting the European Security Strategy 2003-2013

    Opening with a speech by H.E. Linas Linkevičius, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, this international conference was organised in order to mark the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the European Security Strategy (ESS) by the European Council.

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  • 01April 2002
    America's military strategy after 11 September: impact on Europe
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    On 4 February 2002, George Bush presented Congress with the bill for a total, permanent mobilisation of America against terrorism and its consequences: a budget of $2,130 billion, including an additional $48 billion for the Pentagon in October 2002, which is the biggest rise in military funding for 20 years.

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    01April 2002
    Bigger EU, wider CFSP, stronger ESDP? The view from Central Europe
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    This paper collects the papers delivered by a group of mostly young researchers from the ten Central European candidate countries in response to a grid of common questions submitted to them by the Institute for Security Studies in 2001. The considerations that follow summarize the main results of the project, compare the national views, and put them in a broader political context.

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    01April 2002
    From Nice to Laeken - European defence: core documents
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    This is the second volume in our special series of Chaillot Papers presenting core documents on the EU’s security and defence policy. Unlike the first volume, which focused on the whole period from St-Malo to Nice (December 1998 - December 2000), this volume and subsequent ones will recapitulate developments regarding ESDP during the preceding year.

  • 28March 2002
    Europa potenza civile
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    Che l'Unione europea non sia una potenza comparabile agli Stati Uniti risulta evidente dai fatti, a cominciare dal gap crescente - tecnologico e di bilancio - fra gli investimenti militari delle due sponde dell'Atlantico. Che neanche debba porsi l'obiettivo di emulare gli Stati Uniti è invece meno evidente.

  • 13March 2002
    It’s time for a trans-Atlantic summit
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    One of the most striking examples of the potential for new transatlantic solidarity after the September 11 terrorist attacks was the publication by the French newspaper Le Monde, not known to be reflexively pro-American, of an editorial entitled "We are all Americans." The degree to which that solidarity has now dissipated was illustrated by a rather different headline in that same newspaper five months later: "Has the United States gone crazy?"...

  • 27February 2002
    Un Telefono per l’Europa
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    Fra le oltre 50 domande sul futuro dell’Europa contenute nel testo della Dichiarazione di Laeken, un gruppo abbastanza consistente riguarda il ruolo internazionale dell’Unione e, in particolare, il possibile sviluppo di una politica estera e di difesa piu’ "coerente" ed efficace.

  • 25February 2002
    Europe, Etats-Unis : Eviter le pire des deux mondes
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    Aux Etats-Unis, l'explosion de l'effort militaire - 1 milliard de dollars de dépenses par jour - frappe autant par l'ampleur des chiffres annoncés que par l'implosion réciproque du discours politique américain. Comme si la stratégie militaire tenait lieu à elle seule de toute stratégie.

  • 01February 2002
    Stagnation of the ESDP
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    "Revolutionary", it was called, the development of EU defence after the famous Franco-British summit in St-Malo, early December 1998. In the period from St-Malo to Nice, we witnessed the creation of an elaborate and well-functioning EU defence institutional framework, working out EU defence policy.

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    01February 2002
    The old and the new
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    Having devoted the last quarter of 2001 to negotiations on a whole corpus of legal, administrative, social and financial provisions, the Institute is once again operational as an autonomous agency of the Union, financed by the fifteen Member States but still completely independent in the choice of issues it works on and its output.

  • 20January 2002
    Arming for the future
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    Europe needs to get its security and defense act together. What would have happened if the Sept. 11 attacks had targeted La Défense in Paris or London's Canary Wharf? Would the United States have waged war on their behalf in Afghanistan? Could the Europeans have done it themselves? Neither is probable. So what could the Europeans have done and what in the future should they aim to be able to do?

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