Laura Ferreira-Pereira

European Union, Security, Defense.

The security and defense issues have been at the top of the European Union’s agenda since the British people have voted in favor of the Brexit in a historic referendum held in 23 June 2016. This trend was inaugurated by the launching of a new strategic document ‘A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy’, which has emphasized the need for deepened cooperation and coordination at security and defense level. This chapter provides a detailed process tracing of the major concrete initiatives undertaken in the sequence of the Brexit referendum in the realm of the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) which evince the rising relevance ascribed to the security and defense policy dimension and, ultimately, the revitalization of the idea of a European Union of Security and Defense. It also scrutinizes the major challenges underpinning the eventual deepening of the CSDP within the post-Brexit European Union. The work concludes that the European integration process has entered a new phase characterized by a ‘security and defense turn’ or the mainstreaming of security and defense as part of a self-resilience-building strategy adopted by the European Union to cope with the enormous uncertainties arising from the prospective withdrawal of the UK from the EU and the erratic Trump Administration’s foreign policy orientation causing disappointment and distrust regarding American strategic presence in Europe.