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Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies No. 16 / 2020
92And on a functional level, in addition to the essential mandates of presenting pro-posals
on the CSDP and taking charge of their implementation – for which purpose it
coordinates the foreign and defence ministers from the Foreign Affairs Council – he is
entrusted with many other functions: mediating if a state has severe difficulties in as-suming
a European commitment; proposing the special representatives appointed by
the Council for matters connected with defence; holding regular consultations with
the European Parliament on the main aspects of the CSDP; proposing the method of
financing European missions in this field; directing, on behalf of the EU, the dialogue
with third states and international organisations in these matters, coordinating the po-sitions
of the Member States and negotiating and concluding – if necessary – interna-tional
treaties on behalf of and following a mandate from the Council; and expressing
the European position to them, including the United Nations Security Council
As for the specific organisational structure in the field of the CFSP-CSDP, the
Treaty of Lisbon creates or maintains a broad organisational chart: on the one hand,
the Political and Security Committee has the general function of monitoring the in-ternational
situation and contributing to the definition of policy through opinions
addressed to the Council, either at the request of the Council or the High Represent-ative
or on its own initiative. It also monitors the implementation of agreed policies
– without prejudice to the powers of the High Representative – and continues to ex-ercise
political control and strategic direction of crisis management operations under
the responsibility of the Council and the High Representative93.
For its part, the European Defence Agency -created in 2004 as an intergovernmen-tal
agency of the Council of the EU with the task of supporting the Council and the
Member States in their efforts to improve the Union’s defence capabilities in the field
of crisis management and of supporting the European Security and Defence Policy-
was refocused to promote permanent cooperation between the Member States in the
progressive development of their military capabilities, including scientific and techni-cal
research, technological development, arms production and acquisition, etc. To this
end, the Agency is responsible for identifying operational requirements, promoting
measures to satisfy those requirements, contributing to identifying and implementing
measures to strengthen the industrial and technological base of the defence sector,
participating in defining a European capabilities and armaments policy, and assisting
the Council in evaluating the results achieved. The fulfilment of its functions is based
on intergovernmental cooperation, to take advantage of the synergies of the military
industries of the participating States (all except Denmark) and, thus, to harmonise the
national productive and technological means through a functional distribution of the
productive process that makes investments profitable -public and private- and favours
92 Article 34.2 TEU: “When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the agenda of
the United Nations Security Council, those Member States which are members of the Council shall
request that the High Representative be invited to present the Union’s position.
93 Articles 38 and 43.2 TEU, as already indicated in Article 25 of the Treaty of Nice
Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies no. 16 Year: 2020 - Págs.: 399 a 460