The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 110 Kingdom has not stood in the way of the devel- opment of an EU defence policy. Prior to that, the UK had obstructed the development of a defence policy, preferring to entrust the defence and security of Europe almost exclusively to NATO. In the 2017 report, I published an article with the title “The defence policy of the European Union within the framework of a global strategy on foreign and security policy”, in which I argued that the successful develop- ment of the CSDP reflected the global strategy presented by Federica Mogherini. In 2018, I published another article titled “A major new commitment by Member states in Defence and Security: Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO)”, arguing that, if anything, decisions regarding the implementation of Permanent Structured Cooperation were accelerating. As I argued at the time, “defence policy is already on its way, and the challenge now is to ensure that the train does not derail as it picks up speed [...]”. In this article, I argue that the European defence train has gathered speed but that, because the train has many wagons and is very heavy, it will take at least five years before PESCO provides a basis for a credible CSDP and also as the foundation of the defensive alliance more generally (2025 is usually given as an end date), with the ultimate objective of ensuring the security of citizens and the territorial integ- rity of Member states of the EU. I will explain what has happened during 2018, and I will evaluate the nine-month period from April 2018 until January 2019. The central issue I address is the overall development of the CSDP, with a particular focus on PESCO, as this has become the most important instrument of the common security and defence policy. The past year has been one of intense activ- ity with respect to the implementation of PESCO, which was only approved at the end of 2017. Following approval, a number of very im- portant decisions were taken to make PESCO a reality. So far, 34 projects have been approved, in two distinct phases: the first of which oc- curred in March, when 17 projects were given the go-ahead, followed by a second tranche of another 17 projects, that were established in November. All 25 PESCO Member states par- ticipate in these projects, although with varying levels of involvement. It should also be noted that the magnitude of these projects varies greatly, and that there are four lead countries: France, Germany, Italy and Spain. There were also other far-reaching decisions taken in 2018, some of which were required for the implementation of PESCO to proceed, while others were the result of the catalysing role of PESCO on the development of the CSDP, such as the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC), battle groups, the European Defence Fund (EDF) and the industrial develop- ment programme, among others, and all of this is driving advances in CSDP as a whole, with far more progress than had been expected. The creation of PESCO in 2017: a new commitment by Member States As noted in last year’s article, 2017 saw the adoption of major decisions to implement arti- cles 42.6 and 46, and article 1 of Protocol 10 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) – a trea- ty which was ratified in December 2009 but which, for various reasons, was only now being implemented. The main development was the creation of a 25-member PESCO in December 2017, following a European Council resolution. The only countries not to be included were