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General issues
In the corresponding chapter for last year’s re-
port –
The Defence Policy of the European Union
within the Framework of a Global Strategy on
Foreign and Security Policy
– I argued that the
Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)
was making progress. Since then, we have seen
an acceleration of the pace of change, with the
implementation of Permanent Structured
Cooperation (PESCO) by 25 countries.
The challenge now is to ensure that the train
does not derail as it picks up speed. One year
ago, we stated that “the key innovation in this
area has been the transformation of security
and defence policy: while the previous policy
(the European Security and Defence Policy) pri-
marily consisted of overseas crisis management,
the new approach constitutes a comprehensive
defence policy, entailing an obligation of mutual
defence in the event of external aggression
against any EU Member State”.
Confirmation of this can be found in the de-
velopment of the CSDP and the implementation
of PESCO, designed to ensure the credibility of
this defensive alliance. At the time, we also
identified two significant steps that had been
taking during 2016: “The first of these is the
Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy,
which involves agreement based on common
values and seeks to intervene pragmatically in
the regulation of global governance through
the joint action of a stronger Europe. And, in
order to achieve this goal, we are seeing the
development of a strategically autonomous de-
fence policy designed to defend citizens and
territories. The second step is to be found in a
series of concrete decisions that have been tak-
en in the sphere of defence policy (some of
them endorsed by all 27 remaining members
A major new commitment
by Member States in defence and
security: Permanent Structured
Cooperation (PESCO)
Francisco Aldecoa Luzarraga