Bezpieczeństwo jest dziś słowem-kluczem. Bez jego zagwarantowania nie może być mowy o rozwoju społeczno-gospodarczym państw czy organizacji. Bez niego żaden podmiot nie będzie w stanie sprostać pojawiającym się co chwilę wyzwaniom. I choć świat ulega dynamicznym przeobrażeniom, to jednak wciąż w cenie jest posiadanie realnej siły i zdolności odstraszania potencjalnych nieprzyjaciół. Poprawne lub nawet świetne kontakty gospodarcze nie zastąpią więc sił zbrojnych, silnych przemysłów obronnych czy paktów militarnych. Dlatego państwa Starego Kontynentu, wszystkie bez wyjątku, zdać muszą sobie wreszcie sprawę, że trwające od lat redukowanie wydatków wojskowych i wykorzystywanie USA jako gwaranta europejskiego bezpieczeństwa musi się zakończyć. Czas, by Europa wzięła większą odpowiedzialność za siebie i świat. A potencjał ku temu jest wystarczający.

Limited energy resources, EU member countries’ budget capabilities impaired by the financial and debt crisis, Brexit, or the migration crisis that is causing serious consequences, are but a few serious challenges that the Union is going to face within the short-term perspective. One ought not forget about the increasingly powerful and meaningful threats to the Project Europe: rampant terrorism, increasing military activity of Russia (including its actions in eastern Ukraine, Crimea, or on the Sea of Azov), as well as the ambivalent (to say the least) attitude of the current President of the USA towards NATO. Even these few challenges and threats ought to cause for an increase in the decisive and, later on, organizational effort for the purpose of transforming the EU into an entity that shall be able to counteract and react to them. The intention of the author of this article is to provide an attempt to answer the question whether the indicated process is actually taking place.

The evolution of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy under the influence of the European Commission – identifying a trend and assessing prospects for its continuance

Since the mid-2010s, the nature of EU’s CSDP has been constantly evolving – the significance of crisis management decreases, while the defence industry-related cooperation becomes increasingly intense. This is also manifested in the wider use of mechanisms inherent in “civilian” European integration – establishing of programs and funds in particular. The key driver of this change is arguably the active attitude of the European Commission, which has finally gained influence on the shape of the CSDP-related agenda through the instruments it has developed. This paper aims to characterize the key manifestations of this phenomenon and the broader logic behind (especially the determinants of such an evolution), and to analyze its significance for the EU’s “strategic autonomy” aspirations – opportunities for and potential constraints on making the cooperation within CSDP more dynamic.