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

PROTECTING ITS CITIZENS IS BECOMING AN EVER MORE CENTRAL PART OF THE EUROPEAN UNION’S JOB, WITH THE DEVELOPMENT... 111 Denmark, Malta and – of course – the United Kingdom. At the time, it was argued that the version of Permanent Structured Cooperation that had been adopted did not fully match the provisions of the aforementioned articles, as these estab- lish that cooperation is for those states that wish to participate and have the required mili- tary capacities. This was understood to be simi- lar to the need to comply with convergence criteria to join the Economic and Monetary Union, which is designed solely for those who satisfy these requirements. However, this solution was a consequence of the German proposal to include all members in PESCO, with the aim of strengthening unity and a sense of belonging. This decision was taken despite the fact that it contrasted with the French position that membership should be re- stricted to those states which possessed both sufficient military capacity and the willingness to deploy against potential aggression, as per the criteria established in the protocol. The solution adopted was an attempt to seek a formula which reconciled these two posi- tions. On the one hand, almost all Member states (25 out of 27) would be included; on the other, there would be a hard core formed of France, Germany, Italy and Spain who were pre- pared to make a deeper commitment and im- plement the genuine mandate of the second paragraph of the protocol. This means that al- most all Member states are included in PESCO, although the key questions are decided by the four lead states, who are the ones with fully de- veloped defence capacities. The development and application of the CSDP, linked to PESCO At the same time as the creation of PESCO was formally decided, the “Group of Four” set out the strategic guidelines for relaunching a European defence capacity in the form of a let- ter from the Defence Ministers of France, Germany, Italy and Spain to the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini. In this letter, the ministers proposed a series of steps to be taken to achieve the medium-term goal of a more closely integrated and independent European defence policy. They argued that the new commitment to PESCO represented a his- toric moment, a major change that offered an opportunity to relaunch the CSDP as a whole. During 2018, the contents of this letter were put into action, and a number of decisions relat- ing to CSDP were adopted, enabling implemen- tation of the policy and with far-reaching impli- cations for the future. Key among these were CARD, EDF, the European Industrial Development Programme, MPCC, the new form of EU–NATO cooperation, the Action Plan on Military Mobility, and the European Peace Facility, among others: – CARD. The mechanisms to establish CARD were approved at the European Council of 18 May, following on from decisions taken in October 2017, and a pilot scheme was launched through the European Defence Agency, the agency responsible for evaluat- ing the requirements. The first evaluation is due to take place in autumn 2019. On 25 June 2018, the Council approved a number of measures, evaluating capacity shortfalls and the objectives to be achieved. At this meeting, it also approved the capacity devel- opment plan, designed to guide cooperation