The EU Global Security Strategy: the first European Security Strategy (ESS)

Although the Treaty of Maastricht (Treaty on European Union) entered into force in 1993, the first European Security Strategy (ESS) was adopted only in 2003. However, the absence of a formal security strategy did not necessarily mean the failure of the EU Common Security and Defence Policy. The EU Member States used an implicit 'European way' of doing things in field of security and defence and was characterized by cooperation with partner countries, an emphasis on conflict prevention, and a broad approach to aid trade and diplomacy.

The ESS steered the development of EU partnerships and long-term policies, such as development policy. However, it proved insufficient when the EU faced a full-fledged security crisis. It was the EU's failure to address the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s and again in Kosovo in 1999 that drove the institutional development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).

The ESS certainly worked as a general 'narrative'. However, the ESS could have been a more complete strategy. In the ESS, the EU was very clear about its values, translating those values into particular policies: Europe sought to tackle things in a preventive, comprehensive, and multilateral manner. However, the ESS had little to say about either the EU's means – apart from a general acknowledgment that, in the military field especially, more resources were required – or, even more importantly, its objectives. The decision to prioritize assuming leadership in stabilizing Europe's neighbourhood was an important one; opting for a more indirect approach at the global level was the logical result, for it is impossible to prioritize everything at once. In the ESS, however, neither broad objective was broken down into more specific priorities that could drive day-to-day decision-making. The ESS codified how to do things but did not tell Europe what to do first.

Adopting the ESS was a turning point for the newly born EU, but after several years, calls for a strategic review of its security and defence policy became sounder. The first attempt to reinvigorate the CSDP was in the autumn of 2007. However, this idea was not met with universal enthusiasm among the EU Member States and failed. The second attempt was after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. Several EU Member States attempted to put a revision of the ESS on the agenda. However, no agreement was reached.

Only the third attempt was successful. When the EU High Representative on CFSP Federica Mogherini assumed office in 2014, she gave renewed impetus to the strategic debate on the CSDP. When she submitted her assessment of the EU's global environment to the European Council in June 2015, she finally received a mandate to produce an entirely new strategy.

The new strategy, called 'EU Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy' (EUGS), was presented to the European Council on 28 June 2016. This strategy has opened a new page in the history of EU global security and led to the gradual consolidation of the EU CSDP.