The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), formerly known as the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), is a major element of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union (EU) and is the domain of EU policy covering defence and military aspects. The ESDP was the successor of the European Security and Defence Identity under NATO, but differs in that it falls under the jurisdiction of the European Union itself, including countries with no ties to NATO.
Formally, the Common Security and Defence Policy is the domain of the European Council, which is an EU institution, whereby the heads of member states meet. Nonetheless, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, also plays a significant role. In her position as Chairman of the external relations configuration of the Council, she prepares and examines decisions to be made before they are brought to the Council.
European security policy has followed several different paths during the 1990s, developing simultaneously within the Western European Union, NATO and the European Union itself.
Read more about Common Security And Defence Policy: Background 1945-54, Petersberg Tasks, WEU-NATO Relationship and The Berlin Agreement, Incorporation of The Petersberg Tasks and The WEU in The EU, Helsinki Headline Goal, EU-NATO Relationship and The Berlin Plus Agreement, European Security Strategy, Overseas Deployments, Current Content and Structure
Famous quotes containing the words common, security, defence and/or policy:
“The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Those words freedom and opportunity do not mean a license to climb upwards by pushing other people down. Any paternalistic system that tries to provide for security for everyone from above only calls for an impossible task and a regimentation utterly uncongenial to the spirit of our people.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Education must have two foundations—morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defence for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)