Common Defence Policy Research Articles

Implicações da Guerra da Ucrânia na segurança da União Europeia: incremento da supranacionalização?

This article aims to examine the impact of the Ukrainian War on the security architecture of the European Union as it relates to the Common Security and Defense Policy. We attempt to contextualize the Union’s response to the war and its consequences for policies, institutions and borders within the Common Security and Defense Policy framework. To this end, we examine how an external event – the war – acted as a spillover, leading to greater convergence on security and defense issues and a gradual tendency towards the supranationalization of security and defense matters.

Marilena Koppa. The Evolution of the Common Security and Defence Policy: Critical Junctures and the Quest for EU Strategic Autonomy

Marilena Koppa. The Evolution of the Common Security and Defence Policy: Critical Junctures and the Quest for EU Strategic Autonomy. St Antony’s Series. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022 // https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99158-6.

Reforming the common security and defense policy in the long term, considering the threat from Russia

This article analyzes the need to reform the Common Security and Defense Policy of the European Union in the long term, with a particular focus on the threat, posed by the russian federation. The growth of russia's aggressiveness and foreign policy ambitions creates the need to strengthen and adapt the security and defense policy of the European Union. A number of decisions, adopted by the European Union as a countermeasure to russian aggression against Ukraine, are analyzed. The article also examines the reasons that led to the need for institutional reform and key aspects of it, including the strengthening of the Union's military capabilities, the development of the cyber security sector and the expansion of cyber defense infrastructure, ensuring an increase in joint financing of the defense sector and cooperation with strategic partners. The importance and necessity of political unity and joint action among the member states of the European Union, strengthening of defense capabilities, defense cooperation, improvement of crisis management mechanisms and provision of mutual assistance between member states for effective response to threats from russia were emphasized. The article calls for intensive cooperation and coordination between the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as well as for strengthening external partnerships with countries that share common values and have common security interests in the implementation of joint projects and programs in the field of security and defense to ensure stability and security in the region. Reforming the Common Security and Defense Policy is a key factor in ensuring Europe's collective security in the medium and long term, taking into account the needs and challenges of the modern geopolitical environment, and through joint action, the European Union can act as a united front in security solutions and international cooperation

Crumbling in the face of cost? How cost considerations affect public support for European security and defence cooperation

In surveys, Europeans routinely express high levels of support for a common security and defence policy of the European Union. Do these responses reflect real demands or superficial support that would crumble if the issue was politicised? This article provides new answers to this question. We conducted pre-registered survey experiments with more than 40,000 respondents from 25 European countries in which we randomly varied whether respondents received information about potential costs of two hypothetical cooperative activities: military operations and defence procurement. Support for these activities was systematically lower when costs were mentioned. We conclude that, in the event of politicisation, there is considerable potential for shifts in opinion and that caution is required in deriving a mandate for specific activities from high approval rates for cooperation in general.

THE EUROPEAN UNION’S RESPONSE TO MALI’S FRAGILITY PROBLEMS AND THE OPERATION EUCAP SAHEL MALI

In light of recent events that have brought Mali back to the focus of the international community, this article aims to analyse on the basis of the various strategies adopted by the European Union to address the complex problems affecting the Sahel region, the basic pillars of the action of the International Organization for European Integration in this area of the African continent, and in particular in Mali, following a diagnosis of the situation on the ground, focusing the analysis on the civilian mission of the EU Common Security and Defence Policy, EUCAP Sahel Mali.

Franco-German leadership in the context of EU defence policy: from Brexit to the strategic compass

ABSTRACT Leadership is crucial for the success of a collective actor in reaching common goals. Its relevance is particularly visible in the EU, due to the difficulty in managing and converging a wide range of interests, especially in the intergovernmental field of defence. This article analyses Franco-German transactional leadership throughout the evolution of the EU’s security and defence policy, with a focus on the effects of Brexit. By highlighting the concept of leadership in international relations, this study identifies Franco-German actions and strategies within the Common Security and Defence Policy, reflecting on how these have shaped European defence and how Brexit changed existing dynamics. We conclude that France and Germany have led the EU’s security and defence project, albeit with limited success, with a shift towards a successful relaunch of EU defence in the aftermath of Brexit, aided by doubts over NATO and war in Ukraine. At the core of that limited success and representing the main obstacle lay diverging interests and strategies.

The impact of the war in Ukraine on the common security and defense policy of the European Union

The emergence of the war in Ukraine, conditioned by the occupation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and the invasion of the Russian Federation in 2022, is, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the event that will have the greatest geopolitical implications on the international arena, including on the European Union, especially on politics of common security and defence. The ongoing war have a number of long-term implications for the security and stability of the European continent. The degree of possibility of some of the consequences of the Russo-Ukrainian war will be negligible and will be a subject of debate for academics and Western political leaders for many years to come. The purpose of this article is to highlight the main aspects that intervened in the Common Security and Defense Policy of the European Union as a result of the outbreak of a Ucranian war. Thus, the steps taken by the EU to ensure peace on the European continent will be analyzed. Also, some aspects of EU-NATO cooperation in the context of the war in Ukraine will be highlighted.

Архитектоника системы военно-политической безопасности Европейского союза: основания и стратегии реализации

The article reveals the stages of the formation of the military-political contours of the collective security of the European Union (EU). The article analyzes the regulatory and legal foundations of the Common Security and Defense Policy as a course of action for the deployment of civil and military missions to preserve peace, pre-vent conflicts and ensure the stability of the peace system. It is pointed out that in the conditions of increasing international political instability, strengthening of external challenges and civilizational contradictions the revi-sion of the basic principles of European security is required. In order to improve its effectiveness, a set of measures is proposed, providing for the formation of the European Defense Union and its integration with NATO structural units on the basis of value priorities of the EU Global Strategy. It is concluded that in modern conditions the EU is on the threshold of large-scale modernization in the field of security, which will affect all members of the association. The intensification of the process is caused by the dynamics of international rela-tions.

The Untapped Role of the European Parliament in Common Security and Defence Policy

The Untapped Role of the European Parliament in Common Security and Defence Policy

The strength of the intergovernmental principle in the common security and defence policy and the weakness of the eu’s strategic autonomy ambitions in the context of the ukrainian crisis

Since the beginning of Russia?s open military attack on Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union has introduced thirteen new packages of economic sanctions against Russia. Moreover, in addition to direct economic aid to Kyiv, Brussels and a number of member states have pursued a policy of sending military aid in various forms, mostly in accordance with their own assessments of security interests and available capabilities. The EU established a military assistance mission (EUMAM Ukraine) and began to use part of the existing programs, such as the European Peace Facility, for the purpose of equipping the Ukrainian army. In addition, the perception of Russia as a longterm threat is increasingly influencing new plans in the field of military industry and future armaments. In this paper, we want to analyse the cooperation of these steps taken by the EU and which member states take independently or (and) in cooperation through NATO as the dominant military alliance on European soil. Our argument is that the practice of this military crisis shows that member states to a negligible extent tend to use the Common Security and Defense Policy as a framework for their actions, to strengthen and build it in the long term, but tend to use either the bilateral ties - towards Ukraine and among each other, or the existing framework of NATO. This argumentation confirms the postulates of the new intergovernmentalism in the study of CSDP. In political practice, the intergovernmental principle remains dominant in the CSDP domain, and shows that the current practice is not effectively aimed at strengthening the CSDP nor does it provide a new synergistic effect, and that relatively, in the broader balance of power, the EU loses compared to the existing ties within the NATO pact and new flexible forms of bilateral and multilateral cooperation of its member states, outside the CSDP.

ДОСЯГНЕННЯ ТА ВИКЛИКИ СПІЛЬНОЇ ПОЛІТИКИ БЕЗПЕКИ Й ОБОРОНИ ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКОГО СОЮЗУ (1999–2016 рр.)

The article examines the formation of the Common Security and Defence Policy of the European Union and the first stage of its development (1999–2016). The legislative framework for European integration in security and defence is analyzed, primarily a number of treaties adopted at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. It was found that their normative provisions began to be implemented within the framework of the EU CSDP (until 2009 – ECSDP), which was launched in 1999 thanks to the decision of the European Council. The key directions of the EU CSDP at the first stage of its development (1999–2016) were the implementation of peacekeeping operations, the formation of battlegroups, as well as the initiation of joint projects in the field of defence within the framework of the European Defence Agency. It was concluded that the first two directions carried out at the expense of the capabilities already available in each country, developed most dynamically. From 2003 till 2016, the EU carried out more than 30 peacekeeping operations in different parts of the world, and since 2005, multinational combat groups began to go on duty. However, the effectiveness of the implementation of the CSDP was affected by the lack of a single strategic culture among the participating countries, which led to cases of blocking proposals for peacekeeping operations or the use of EU battlegroups to resolve crises. A serious problem at the first stage was also the lack of joint financing mechanisms for peacekeeping operations and battlegroups, due to which most of their costs were transferred directly to the participating countries. It was revealed that the weakest link during 1999–2016 was the third direction of the CSDP, which related to the joint development of defence capabilities at all stages. The article concludes that the experience of the first stage of the CSDP was taken into account in the further reform of the EU, in particular, in the process of launching new initiatives during 2017–2022, which brought European defence integration to a new level. It is emphasized that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine proved the need for further reform of the CSDP while simultaneously strengthening the EU’s cooperation with the USA, NATO, and Ukraine.

Europe’s Grand Strategy (The Common Security and Defence Policy)

The paper explores the security challenges, national interests, and defense policy development of modern European countries, namely Great Britain, France, and Germany. Great Britain recently exited the European Union on February 1, 2020. Over the years, Britain has played an active role in the EU's security and defense policy. Therefore, we cannot overlook the significance of Great Britain, and while discussing it, we will first focus on the period before Brexit (until 2020) and then review the period after Brexit.
 The aforementioned states are major players in shaping Europe's security architecture today. Working together and developing a common strategy is crucial for the security of the continent. The European security policy that was established after World War II is based on the theory of interdependence. I conducted the research using discourse analysis to examine the internal national security strategies of these states, as well as their relationships with one another and with international organizations such as NATO and the European Union.

Strengthening the EU’s defence cooperation

In an expeditiously changing world, security challenges have become more intricate, multifaceted and complex. The 21st century is an epoch of strategic competition and multisided relations. The influence and rate of occurrence of hybrid security threats are constantly rising and deepening. World is in era of transition, characterized by creating new dynamics by emerging players along with significant shift of geopolitical and economic power, and currently, global attention is drawn to the Russian aggression against Ukraine, which is the consequent catalyst for the EU states, obligating them to take more responsibility and improve security and defence. Russia does not use force only to dominate on Ukraine, but this war aims to reverse and strike down western dominance - it is a big threat-economically, militarily, and politically. In an international competition, other powers are challenging the European countries’ ability to protect their interests and values that was the motivation for the idea of collective security building called "strategic sovereignty". For this reason, both defence and security fields are essentially important for the European Union. The EU leaders have long been trying to improve common defence policy - the European Union External Action Service in 2011, and later in 2016, the EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker called for a common defence fund, a “European headquarters.“ In March 2022, the EU council approved the Strategic Compass. The Compass gives the European Union an ambitious plan of action for strengthening the EU's security and defence policy by 2030 (EU, 2022. French President Emmanuel Macron urged Europe to invest in its own collective security framework in the face of Russian military moves on the bloc’s doorstep - "Europe needs to finally build its own collective security framework on our continent." We argue about the prospects of collective security and the fact that it may now be time for the EU member States to take the necessary decisions.

Cooperation between Ukraine and the European Union within the Framework of the Common Security and Defense Policy of the EU

This article discloses the political, legal, financial, economic, and military aspects of Ukraine-EU cooperation within the EU Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). The historical stages, mechanisms of development, special structural and organizational characteristics of the CSDP, and its tools for implementing the tasks that envisage involvement of the third of countries in the cooperation are considered. The experience of Ukraine’s involvement in EU peacekeeping operations as well as operation of EU civil missions in Ukraine is analyzed. Special attention is paid to the engagement of Ukraine in EU Security and Defense Policy after the conclusion of the Association Agreement in 2014. Enhanced cooperation in different forms after Russia launched its war on Ukraine in 2022 is the focus of attention, particularly the strengthening of political and economic sanctions imposed by the EU on Russia, provision of humanitarian and financial assistance to Ukraine, weapons exports, cybersecurity guarantees, and prospects for the introduction of a military mission. Certain benefits of such a cooperation for the EU and its CSDP are identified as well.

The Kosovo Crisis as a Destabilizing Factor of European Security

The Republic of Kosovo is a kind of “node” of problems not only in the Balkans, but in Europe in general. The recognition of Kosovo’s independence laid the groundwork for the destabilization of European security. Today, Kosovo is recognized mainly by the democratic states of the world. These are the countries that currently support Ukraine. In the non-support camp are Serbia, Russia and its few allies such as Belarus, as well as China with its satellites. Although the Kosovo problem is not so clear. Among the countries that do not recognize Kosovo are a number of states (Spain, Romania, Greece, Slovakia), which are wary of the fact that the “Kosovo precedent” may contribute to separatist movements and create problems for them.
 15 years have passed since the declaration of independence of Kosovo. However, Belgrade and Pristina function from crisis to crisis. Recently, the usual crises have become somewhat more intense and have made the world talk about the possibility of another war in Europe. Today, the geopolitical consequences of Kosovo’s declaration of independence look quite pessimistic. The representatives of the EU and the USA, understanding the consequences of their actions, are trying to resolve this conflict at any cost in order to demonstrate to the whole world that the situation is under control. Currently exerting pressure specifically on the government of Pristina, these actors are trying to finally achieve full political normalization between Kosovo and Belgrade so that there are no further ethnic tensions in the region and a constant aggravation of the situation in the north of the self-proclaimed republic. Time will tell whether it will give significant results. However, it is possible to at least reduce the tension between Serbia and Kosovo by weakening the manipulative actions on the relations of these countries by Russia.
 Funding. The work was supported by the European Commision under the Jean Monnet Module «The European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy: challenges related to the War in Ukraine» (ESEDEP), № 101127823 — ESEDEP — ERASMUS-JMO-2023-HEI-TCH-RSCH.

Francuska prezydencja w Radzie Unii Europejskiej – bilans w świetle Wspólnej Polityki Bezpieczeństwa i Obrony UE

This analysis aims to evaluate the implementation of the priorities of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the challenges it faced, with particular emphasis on the objectives of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy. The article describes the French Presidency in a broader European geopolitical context, which affected the final shape of the presidency’s goals and their implementation.

The War in Ukraine and the EU’s Geopolitical Role in Spanish Media Discourses

The EU’s ability to protect common interests and effectively address the challenges faced by its members relating to external threats is one of the most debated questions in the European landscape. Understandably, the war in Ukraine has had a major impact on discourses regarding the EU Common Security and Defense Policy, granting them more space and thus visibility in the media and public debates. Our study examines Spanish media discourses about the EU’s geopolitical role and, more specifically, to what extent such discourses foster or hamper European integration processes. To collect data and carry out this study, we selected six media outlets based on their ownership, ideological stance, consumption frequency, and impact on public opinion. Our sample includes 540 news items, collected between July 2021 and March 2022. Our discourse analysis benefits from, inter alia, a Foucauldian framework that focuses on the sayable, conservation, memory, reactivation, and appropriation. In addition, we also identify communicative strategies that are employed to promote different discourses, as well as possible policy alternatives, concerning the EU’s geopolitical role and future prospects.

Putting the Common Security and Defense Policy in the Eastern Mediterranean under Scrutiny: Türkiye’s Conflicting Role

The end of the Cold War and the emergence of a new global security and economic environment (Defence budgets’ decline, imminent threats from the Gulf War and NATO’s quest for a new identity), provided a window of opportunity for establishing and designing the EU’s security institution. Thus, what was initially considered farfetched after the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, entered a new phase, which included perception transformation, to be gradually incorporated into daily discourse. Hence, the 2003 “European Security Strategy”, the 2010 “Internal Security Strategy”, and later the 2016 “Global Strategy” reflect Member States’ perception of transformation and their belief that the EU needs a Common Security and Defence Strategy approach. Given these documents that indicate determination for notable integration and institutional restructuring, this analysis delves into the impact of Europeanisation concerning the implementation of institutional reforms and the CSDP. More specifically, this analysis probes the constraints of Europeanisation concerning the EU’s real operational dynamics, especially in light of the Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean Sea security challenges. These challenges are examined in relation to Türkiye’s revisionist public diplomacy, public policies, and the militarization of its foreign policy (including ongoing negotiations centered on migratory flows, assertions, and constructed narratives over Greek and Cypriot islands and seas). The situation has become more pronounced following the identification of gas and oil reserves in the area in 2010. This analysis has a two-fold focus: Firstly, to investigate Europeanisation impact on the operational implementation of CSDP (Common Security and Defence Policy) in time of crisis, and secondly, to evaluate the behavior of Türkiye within the Europeanisation framework, as proposed by Radaelli and Violakis.

El océano azul de la política común de seguridad y defensa

The blue ocean of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) of the European Union is the object of study of this research, from a basically policy-making approach, focused on policy design. As a starting point, it takes content from geopolitics and realism theories that analyse why the common European defence policy is so problematic. The study explains the blue ocean tool with the case study of the F-35 aircraft. Based on their understanding, the red ocean strategy is described against the blue ocean strategy, contrasting a Europe within NATO and dependent on the US against a Europe as A²E (strategic actor and strategic autonomy). Subsequently, the scheme of four actions in the construction of a common defence policy in Europe is elaborated. The blue ocean matrix is structured, where the construction of a common defence policy in Europe is analysed, presenting what should be eliminated from the defence policy, what should be reduced, what should be increased and, finally, what should be created to achieve a common security and defence policy of the European Union (EU). Then, the four organizational barriers to achieving a European Armed Forces and the three key components of the change to the European Armed Forces are considered.

Contracted EU civil servants in EU common security and defence policy missions: Procedural routes to judicial remedies

The right of judicial review for EU civil servants against their employer has historically been guaranteed by both EU primary law and EU secondary law. This has been through staff regulations having regard to Articles 270, 298, and 336 TFEU providing for judicial redress of employment disputes. However, an increasing number of EU civil servants fall outside the scope of such staff regulations, for example, contracted EU civil servants working for the EU's international missions in third states. These Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions employ thousands of people in different operational military and civilian capacities in the most dangerous regions of the world. There is a growing body of case law that has been developed at the Court of Justice of the European Union regarding access to justice for such staff, and how their employment-related disputes are to be adjudicated upon in the absence of staff regulations. This article probes the issue, and analyses the procedural difficulties, notably in terms of access to remedies, choice of applicable law, and the distinction between contractual and non-contractual issues, which such staff face. The article argues in favour of the introduction of specific staff regulations to cover contracted EU civil servants in CSDP missions, to ensure their procedural rights are protected, and that they have equal access to judicial protection.