CSDP

With considerable delay in comparison to aerospace and defense electronics, a restructuring process is occurring in Europe’s land armaments sector. National consolidation in the big arms producing countries is paralleled by an increasing number of transnational link-ups.

The first session focused on threat perceptions and threat assessments. The key question was whether a threat exists that justifies NMD deployment. Do the so-called ‘countries of concern’ really intent to threaten the US homeland and, even more importantly, do they have the...

With the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May 1999 and the European Council's Cologne Declaration of 4 June 1999, further steps have been taken towards the realisation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and therefore towards a common defence policy.

This Chaillot Paper aims to give readers an overview of the EU Battlegroups and their prospective evolution. The study addresses four main questions: (i) the process leading to the creation of the EU Battlegroups; (ii) the main elements covered by the EU BG Concept; (iii) the...

Europe is at peace but the world is not. Following the shock of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the Institute decided, two years ago, to convene an independent task force in order to address the issue of future European capabilities.

Since the EU has assumed responsibility for military operations, questions of democratic legitimacy have become more prominent in European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). Although democracy has been a contested concept, four ‘pillars’ can be distinguished that contribute to a...

The 1999 Helsinki Summit saw EU governments committing to a reform of their military capabilities, better equipping their armies for peacekeeping missions. In this latest EUISS Policy Brief, Daniel Keohane and Charlotte Blommestijn examine just how much progress has been made in...

The EU's military planning capacity is in need of a major overhaul. The lack of a permanent operational planning headquarters undermines peacekeeping performance, and more broadly, the development of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). This Occasional Paper seeks to...

The EU has placed a growing emphasis on human rights issues in its civilian crisis management operations over the years, in turn creating operational challenges far beyond what has previously been experienced. This paper uses EUPOL and EUJUST LEX as a yardstick for examining the...

In November 2010 France and Britain embarked on a new era of defence cooperation. Why did they do so? How will it work? And what impact will it have on wider European defence cooperation? In the first in-depth analysis of its kind, the author explores these questions in detail...