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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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PESCO shares the same basic objective as
NATO, seeking to lend credibility to the defensive
alliance established in Article 42.7 TEU by estab-
lishing a permanent military organization, with
the aim of achieving strategic autonomy so that
it is able to deal with potential aggression inde-
pendently, without having recourse to NATO.
The agreements adopted in December 2017
with respect to the creation of PESCO represent
a major new commitment by Member States in
Defence and Security. And the decisions taken
during the first months of 2018 constitute sig-
nificant progress.
Although this does not mean that success is
inevitable and that an autonomous defence
policy will necessarily be created soon, it is im-
portant to recognize that – over the course of
the last two years and particularly during the
last twelve months – good use has been made
of the window of opportunity created by the
UK’s decision to vote for Brexit on 23 June 2016
and its subsequent notification of withdrawal
on 29 March 2017.
We can therefore conclude that, over the
past year, there has been progress in developing
the CSDP, along with a major step towards the
final approval and implementation of PESCO,
which heralds the start of constructing a perma-
nent, autonomous military defence capacity by
25 EU Member States.
At the same time, we cannot say with cer-
tainty whether the EU, through its development
of the CSDP and, principally, the application and
implementation of PESCO, will be able to de-
fend itself against potential external attacks
solely through its collective defence structures
without requiring the support of NATO.