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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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    01December 2003
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    Space and security policy in Europe

    Space is a strategic asset, and its importance both in terms of technology and security cannot be overestimated.

  • 20November 2003
    Interparliamentary conference on the global partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction

    The EUISS participated in the organisation of a major inter-parliamentary conference, led and financed by the European Commission and held at the European Parliament. The conference was organised in the spirit of the G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, and under the French presidency of the G8.

  • 01October 2003
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    Three pillars for CFSP

    Three paradoxes characterise the Union's attitude to the rest of the world. The first is typical of post-Cold War realities: with very few exceptions, it is now much easier for the Europeans to agree a view on external crises than on American policy. Terrorism provides a classic example of this.

  • 01October 2003
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    Armaments: new opportunities, new challenges

    The debate on how to reform Europe's armaments sector has a long history. However, since the work of the Convention on the Future of Europe, discussions have entered into a new phase.

  • 18September 2003
    European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and the Mediterranean

    The European Union Institute for Security Studies organised, in cooperation with the Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, a seminar for the PSC, which was held in Brussels on 18 September 2003.

  • 01September 2003
    The enlarged EU and its new neighbours: new security challenges

    With the current 'big bang' enlargement nearing its conclusion, it has become crucial to assess if and to what extent the European Union can and will widen further. The ISS devoted a seminar to this issue, with participants from both current and future member states.

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    01August 2003
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    The European Union and armaments: getting a bigger bang for the Euro

    Up until now, EU member states have excluded armaments from the European integration process and have cooperated in this field outside the EU framework. However, there is a fair chance today that this will change: both the work of the Convention on the Future of Europe and the debate on the recent Commission Communication on a common defence equipment policy indicate a greater openness among national governments vis-à-vis possible EU involvement in armaments.

  • 01July 2003
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    European strategy -- first steps

    For the first time in its history the European Union has set about drawing up a common strategic concept. This is a major event. From necessity during the Cold War and then from a lack of consensus, the Union left strategic thinking to the United States and member states. That has changed for two reasons: divided, Europe is powerless, and an enlarged Europe cannot afford to shirk its responsibilities

  • 28June 2003
    Transatlantic security cooperation: facing the new challenges

    The Rome conference was the second transatlantic conference organised by the EU Institute for Security Studies in 2003. It focused on the EU and US strategic concepts, EU-NATO cooperation, armaments cooperation, and future trends for transatlantic links.

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    01June 2003
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    EU cooperative threat reduction activities in Russia

    During the last year, the Institute has participated in a consortium of policy research organisations in the United States, Europe, Russia and Asia that aims to strengthen the G-8’s ‘Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction’ initiative. The consortium, led by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS, Washington, DC), seeks to support and promote cooperative threat reduction (CTR) activities.

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    01June 1993
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    The special Franco-German security relationship in the 1990s

    The Institute was pleased to welcome Peter Schmidt, one of the leading German scholars of European security integration from the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Ebenhausen, as a visitor during the early part of 1992. This paper, which was begun while he was with us and completed subsequently, formed the basis for a number of discussions within the Institute and we are now glad to be able to make it available to a wider audience.

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    01May 1993
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    Hungary and its neighbours

    In Europe the collapse of the communist system has given rise to great aspirations to democracy and civil rights. At the same time, new tensions are accompanying this move to democracy, whether in connection with the right to self-determination, minority rights, or the dissolution of former compound states - the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.

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    01January 1993
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    Military cooperation: what structure for the future?

    The end of the Cold War, the development of new political and military structures, the increased involvement of European forces in United Nations operations which may well involve a wider range of functions; all these developments make it necessary to re-examine the range of possible command arrangements for forces coming from various nations.

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    01November 1992
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    European integration and nuclear deterrence after the Cold War

    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
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    European security integration in the 1990s

    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
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    European security across the Mediterranean

    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
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    European defence: why not the Twelve?

    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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