The Strategic Compass for Security and Defense in Light of the Prospects for the EU Common Security and Defense Policy

Abstract

The defence policy of the EU has from the very outset remained in the shadow of NATO, as the primary and dominant defence forum for EEC/EC/EU member states. The challenges of the multipolar world, however, may make it in the interest of NATO itself that the military capabilities of the EU be finally developed. The Strategic Compass for Security and Defence is at the same time a common security assessment and a plan of action for strengthening the EU’s security and defence capabilities by 2030. It is not a strategy, since CSDP is still not able to generate a proactive vision of, and a requisite will how to promote EU security interests. The ongoing shift of US security focus to the Pacific makes the development of such capacity on the part of the EU a bare necessity.