European internal-external security nexus and the missing role for CSDP interventions

Since their conception, the European Union (EU) struggled with connecting its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) interventions to the broader European geopolitical goals. A decision to launch an intervention typically reflected case-by-case bargaining between the Member States, intervention objectives emerging-by-doing, disconnected from any larger European foreign policy agenda. Only in the mid-2010s, by the adoption of the EU Global Strategy and the Integrated Approach, CSDP interventions were drawn closer to EU foreign policy. Simultaneously, internal security gained more relevance in European policy discourse, starting to serve as a justification for external interventions. Prevention of immigration was adopted as a key objective for CSDP operations and missions, while also other foreign policy tools such as Frontex were equipped to perform similar tasks outside European borders. CSDP only serving as a secondary tool for the new internal security priorities, and Javier Solana’s ‘force for good’ thinking losing edge, the raison d’être of crisis management became challenged. The recent strive for European strategic autonomy complicates the role of interventions in the EU’s foreign policy toolbox even further; while military CSDP has gained fresh impetus, the perceived added value of civilian CSDP has turned more uncertain. This research paper investigates the role of CSDP operations and missions in the EU’s foreign policy agenda. Based on a series of interviews, it argues that the ambiguity over the role of CSDP interventions in terms of internal and external security has led to squeezing of CSDP between other instruments for EU foreign and security policy and to decreasing interest by the Member States towards the crisis management tool. An alternative scenario, CSDP missions and operations connecting European internal and external security interests and remaining central to the EU’s strategic autonomy is discussed and prerequisites for it are identified.