422
Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies No. 16 / 2020
for its own security. This European military dependence, which has been dragging on
since the Cold War years, has the advantage of being able to count on sufficient securi-ty
at a reduced price, but with the double disadvantage of not possessing autonomous
capacity for action and being subordinate to another power.
Outside the institutional framework of the European Union, a major restructuring
of defence-related industries has been taking place in recent decades, and these com-panies
– faced with growing competition from other economic powers – have been
demanding a more open and efficient market in order to improve competitiveness.
Initially, the main EU Member States reacted with several ad hoc agreements74.
Finally, on 17 June 2004 the European Council approved the “Headline Goal 2010”
–recently adopted by the Council two months before – which established a new target
for the development of the European Union’s military capabilities, drawing on the
previous “Goal” designed at Helsinki in 1999 – but not attainted – the experience of
the first EU military operations and the doctrinal input of the “European Security
Strategy” of 2003. It also called for action led by the EU Member States with the
greatest military and economic capacity, perhaps through a model of structured coop-eration75.
But there was still a major difference in pace between the development of the
institutional framework of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy and the
actual implementation of military and civilian capabilities, which revealed the lack of
genuine political will in this field.
Security and Defence Policy since the treaty of Lisbon
The current Treaty of Lisbon, of 2007 and in force since 2009, expressly grants the
EU a single international legal personality (Art.47 TEU), which recasts the three pre-viously
existing pillars and reduces the conventional instruments to two, the Treaty on
European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
(TFEU). Both strengthen foreign policy, as Section V of the TEU is devoted to the
Union’s external action-and specifically to the CFSP (Articles 21-46) – and the TFEU
devotes Part Five (Articles 205-222) to this area, which includes the former Commu-nity
policies with external projection – such as the common commercial policy, coop-eration
with third countries, humanitarian aid, international agreements and relations
with other international subjects.
74 Such as the Letter of Intent on the European Defence Industry (and its Framework Agreement),
signed by the Defence Ministers of six Member States -Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, the United
Kingdom and Spain- on 27 July 2000, to facilitate industrial restructuring and promote the
competitiveness of the European defence technological and industrial base; or the Joint Organisation
for Cooperation in the field of Armaments (OCCAR) – created by Germany, France, Italy and the
United Kingdom – to improve the management of armaments cooperation programmes.
75 FERNÁNDEZ SOLA, N. “El impacto de un eventual Triunvirato sobre la política de defensa de
la Unión Europea”. ARI (Real Instituto Elcano). 2004, no. 10, pp.9-12.
Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies no. 16 Year: 2020 - Págs.: 399 a 460