Does the EU Need a Military Avant-Garde?

Cheerleaders for EU military cooperation have seized on the UK’s Brexit decision as an opportunity to bolster that policy area, including through the use of EU treaty mechanisms like Permanent structured cooperation (PESCO). But permanent structured cooperation was conceived in a very different political and security era, and governments should not employ this tool simply for the sake of it. If PESCO cannot be used well, then it should not be used at all.

• Primary Source

ESO: Find further information in ESO on this topic http://www.europeansources.info/advSearchLink?keyword=permanent%20structured%20cooperation%20defence%20&searchOption=all

EUR-Lex: Glossary of Summaries: Permanent structured cooperation http://eur-lex.europa.eu/summary/glossary/permanent_structured_cooperation.html

IAI: Differentiated integration in Defence: a Plea for PESCO, February 2017 http://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/eu60_1.pdf

EP: EPRS: Study, July 2017: La Coopération Structurée Permanente: Perspectives nationales et état d’avancement http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2017/603842/EXPO_STU(2017)603842_FR.pdf

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