Abstract

During its 2009 Presidency of the European Union, Sweden re-launched the debate on the usability of battlegroups, a European military instrument conceived to facilitate the EU’s involvement in global security. Despite their full operational capability since 2007 and the different crises that arose in the past two years, the battlegroups were never deployed. The failure to use this tool stems from the lack of sufficient political will by Member States to act in a common way. As a result, the analysis of this instrument reveals the difficulties to which European defence’s integration is confronted. The political debate on the use of battlegroups started a few months ago but is not finished yet. Some solutions to its improvement were found during the Swedish Presidency, but the subsequent Presidencies of 2010 should revisit the question.

Key words : European Union, CFSP, CDSP, defence, military, foreign policy, European integration