In recent years, the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has achieved several concrete landmarks. With the European Peace Facility (EPF), the EU has jumpstarted capacity building for its neighbours and other partners. Novel operations and missions have been successfully launched and, after a slow start, the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) is delivering actual outputs, also in cooperation with the UK and NATO. The success seems to be based on both institutional development and external factors:

New instruments and structures for CSDP have been built up gradually over the last half-decade, including PESCO, the European Defence Fund (EDF) and the Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) in 2017, and the EPF in 2021. At the same time, the security crises in Europe – including the Russian annexation of Crimea and the start of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014, and finally Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine since 2022 – have been met with an unprecedented political will to overcome practical challenges and internal disputes in order to use the CSDP instruments in response.

However, the future of the currently blooming CSDP activities seems uncertain and might become compromised surprisingly shortly. The lack of a long-term vision for financing the EPF and CSDP missions and operations, as well as persistent internal conflicts (both among EU members and institutions and with allies), decrease effectiveness and limit achievable results. The following sections review the current state of the CSDP, focusing on the EPF, PESCO, and recent crisis management activities.