Military capacities at the service of the European Security Strategy

Abstract

The passing of the first European Security Strategy (ESS) at the end of 2003 was followed by the “Headline Goal 2010”, an important programme concerning the development of the military capacities of the ESDP. This document has since worked as a headlight, orienting the efforts of the EU to accomplish before that deadline several substantial targets, some of which have already been fulfilled. Among the proposed tasks, two stand in the forefront: the creation of the European Defence Agency (EDA), operational since 2004, and the generation of an armed forces system capable of rapid response, the battlegroups, operational since 2007. This article aims to address the triangle based on the ESS and completed by the battlegroups and the EDA as dynamizing elements of the whole development of the military capacities of the European Union, and as means to boost a growing convergence in its security and defence dimensions.