Wspólna Polityka Bezpieczeństwa i Obrony – nowa strategia początkiem końca?
Common Security and Defense Policy: Is the new strategy a beginning of the end?

Summary/Abstract: This article examines developments within the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in 2016. First, the authors focus on analysing the consequences the adoption of European Global Strategy, the result of the British referendum on Brexit, the continuing immigration crisis, and the decisions concerning the cooperation between the Alliance and the EU made during the NATO Warsaw summit will have for the evolution of CSDP. After presenting the strategic context and main determinants of CSDP’s functioning in 2016, the authors briefly discuss the process of formulation of EGS, and then discuss its main points. They also analyze the efforts taken by some European states to stimulate development of CSDP by initiating some models of cooperation within smaller groups of EU members (i.e. PESCO and the “Schengen for defence” initiative). New steps and propositions to deepen and reinvigorate NATO–EU cooperation, particularly within the operational dimension, are also analyzed, and their perspectives for success assessed (rather pessimistically). Developments – relatively moderate in 2016 – within the sphere of defence industry cooperation are presented next. The article ends with a discussion of EU operational engagement, with growing focus on dealing with the immigration crisis and the tendency to “optimize” costs and burdens associated with CSDP missions. In conclusion, the authors signal the risks associated with potential fragmentation of European cooperation by parallel development through too many different structures (NATO, CSDP, PESCO, or “Schengen for defence”).

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