The EU’s new bilateral security and defence partnerships

Written by Elena Lazarou with Panagiotis Politis Lamprou.

This briefing updates an earlier one from January 2025.

The Strategic Compass, adopted by the 27 EU Member States in March 2022 – only weeks after the onset of Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked aggression against Ukraine – emphasised the need for robust partnerships in order for the EU to be able to achieve its objectives in the area of security and defence. Alongside ‘acting’ (operations), ‘securing’ (resilience) and ‘investing’, ‘partnering’ is one of the four main pillars of the Compass. The document itself outlines specific targets and deadlines against which to measure progress in this area.
While the EU has partnered with other security and defence actors (essentially states and international organisations) in the past, a new model of tailored security and defence partnership was launched shortly after the adoption of the Compass, as a reinforced framework for enhanced partnership. To date, the EU has signed eight such partnerships – with (by date of signature) Moldova, Norway, Japan, South Korea, North Macedonia, Albania, the United Kingdom and Canada, and more are envisaged. While the partnerships vary in content, depending on the assessed mutual interests of the EU and each individual partner, around 10 areas of cooperation are common to all eight.
The European Parliament has highlighted the significance of the Strategic Compass’s partnership dimension and, in particular, the value of security and defence dialogues with partners from the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership, as well as with key partners in strategic maritime areas such as the Southern Neighbourhood and the Indo-Pacific. Parliament has underlined that cooperation with countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, Ukraine, Georgia, Western Balkan countries, Japan, Australia and certain African countries serves as a key element of the common security and defence policy. In 2023, it called for deeper military and defence cooperation with Japan and South Korea, and for closer cooperation with partners in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Read the complete briefing on ‘The EU’s new bilateral security and defence partnerships‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.