Common Foreign and Security Policy

2.68 billionCivilian and military missions to safeguard international peace and security

Analysis | Iter | Text | Status | Info | Calls | Results | Site | Docs | News | Events

DG / Responsible Agencies: FPI | EEAS

Potential beneficiaries

International organizations, advisory groups and advisory missions active in crisis scenarios in third countries, election observation missions, organizations active in the field of peace and security.

Description and objectives

The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) supports the EU in its role as a global actor; contributing to “a stronger Europe in the world” and “preserving peace, preventing conflict and strengthening international security.” A particularly important role, in the multiplicity of international challenges in the contemporary world, the response to which needs the full combined political weight of the European Union.

CFSP actions thus aim to ensure the EU’s ability to act and intervene quickly to address civil crises and promote nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament through support for multilateral action. The CFSP pursues two objectives in particular:

• Promote international cooperation in the field of security sector reform and develop and consolidate democracy and the rule of law, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms;
• Promote strategic cooperation with international partners on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and combating the illicit accumulation of small arms and light weapons and other conventional weapons, and support EU policy on conventional arms exports.

Types of actions and projects

The budget is implemented through a combination of direct management (e.g., election observation missions) and indirect management (e.g., civilian common security and defense policy) or both (e.g., nonproliferation and disarmament actions).

CFSP objectives are pursued through two main types of actions:

• Different types of civilian common security and defense policy missions, varying according to the specific mandates provided by the Council (e.g., advisory missions providing advice to host countries on drafting security sector legislation or capacity-building missions providing practical operational activities);
• Actions related to nonproliferation and disarmament, implemented mainly through agreements with international organizations (organizations of the UN family and others active in the field of nonproliferation and disarmament).

More specifically, CFSP funds:

• Technical assistance, capacity building, training and skills transfer projects;
• Actions that contribute to strengthening states’ capacities to improve the safety and security of ammunition stockpiles, thereby contributing to national and global risk reduction;
• Provision of experts, election observers, police officers and rule of law experts.

Highlights

The current programming cycle maintains CFSP as a separate instrument, complementary to other conflict and crisis response instruments (under the Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation instruments).