EU — Council conclusions on Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)

1. The Coun­cil high­lights the role of Com­mon Secu­ri­ty and Defence Pol­i­cy (CSDP) as an impor­tant and suc­cess­ful instru­ment of the Euro­pean Union. The Treaty on the Euro­pean Union con­sti­tutes the open­ing of a new chap­ter in the EU’s secu­ri­ty and defence pol­i­cy, with the High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Union for For­eign Affairs and Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy, sup­port­ed by the Euro­pean Exter­nal Action Ser­vice (EEAS), to ensure increased effec­tive­ness in CSDP and CFSP in general.

2. The EU is a unique and influ­en­tial actor, able to cov­er all stages from con­flict pre­ven­tion, rapid response and cri­sis man­age­ment to longer term sup­port for devel­op­ment, with a wide range of instru­ments. In this regard, the Coun­cil looks for­ward to the estab­lish­ment of the EEAS which will give a key con­tri­bu­tion to the increased pol­i­cy coher­ence in the over­all frame­work of the EU’s com­pre­hen­sive approach in its for­eign relations.

3. The CSDP mis­sions and oper­a­tions are framed with­in a coher­ent pol­i­cy approach, oper­at­ing on the ground as part of the EU fam­i­ly and build­ing on nec­es­sary local own­er­ship. In order to con­tin­ue ensur­ing the added val­ue and qual­i­ty of CSDP mis­sions and oper­a­tions, the Coun­cil reit­er­ates the need to con­tin­ue improv­ing effec­tive­ness in pro­vid­ing per­son­nel and equip­ment, to share best prac­tices, and fur­ther devel­op com­mon train­ing and exer­cis­ing activities.