The Treaty of Lisbon established the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) which substituted the former European Security and Defence Policy. The main aim of the CSDP is the promotion of security and peace. One of its key goals is to establish common European defence capabilities, but not necessarily a European army, as is often rumoured.
In 2012 the global and regional geopolitical environment began to change. Terrorism, violent extremism, and hybrid threats all presented new risks to security, peace and stability. This brought the European Union into a new mind-set about the future of its security and defence. Two of the main realizations were that it had to increase defence spending and that Member States needed to coordinate their defence capabilities. As a result, in December 2017, 25 members of the European Union decided to launch Permanent Structured Cooperation in Defence, which is also known as PESCO.
Elena Lazarou from the European Parliamentary Research Service is here to answer three key questions on EU defence.
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See also our Peace & Security Outlook 2018.
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