Toward a European Union Defense Policy

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the military defense and seeurity aspeets of the European Union’s Common Security and Foreign Policy (CSFP). The article is divided into three sections. In the first, Basulto Poot recounts the political events that led the EU to develop a CSFP that, besides having its own defense structure, would aim to preserve the internal stability and consolidation of a united front in terms of security. In the second section, the author examines the lines along which the EU’s future security and defense policy will have to be developed such as its tasks, decision mechanisms, jurisdictional bodies, means for implementing military type decisions, and the relationship it will have with the North American Treaty Organization, the Organization for Seeurity and Cooperation in Europe, as well as with the United Nations. The third section develops the main challenges the EU will have to face in implementing its common security and defense policy, in particular staying independent from the influence of NATO—specially the United States—, and of the United Nations. The author concludes that Europe will not, at least in the coming years, become a military super power, since development of its common security and defense policy will be overcast by the presence of NATO, which will continue to be the guarantor of the continent’s security.