Tomorrow Friday at 10 a.m. at the Centro Superior de Estudios de la Defensa Nacional (CESEDEN), Castellana, 61, Madrid, the Fundación Alternativas presents the document European Defence and the Europe of Defence.
The main reason behind the preparation of this document is the urgent need for in-depth analysis to assess the current state of defence in the European Union in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment. Events such as Brexit or the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in June 2021 clearly pointed to the need for the EU to take very seriously the reins of its own security and defence. Today, however, the European momentum seems to have slowed and given way to another NATO momentum.
The timeframe of this paper falls between two important and interconnected milestones: the release of the Strategic Compass in March 2002, on the one hand, and NATO’s New Strategic Concept in June 2022, on the other. Other recent milestones to be highlighted in the EU that have had a positive influence on the field of defence are the conclusions reached at the Informal Meeting of Heads of State and Government in Versailles (10 and 11 March 2021), and the subsequent European Council of 23 and 24 March; or the victory of Emmanuel Macron in the French presidential elections of April 2021, together with the work carried out during France’s six-month Presidency of the Council of the EU.
The event will be opened by Francisco de Paula Bisbal Pons, Lieutenant General of the Marine Corps. Director of CESEDEN, and Diego López Garrido, Executive Vice-President of the Fundación Alternativas and former Secretary of State for the EU, and Admiral Juan Francisco Martínez Núñez, Secretary General for Defence Policy (SEGENPOL) will present the event. The colloquium will feature Constantino Méndez, former Secretary of State for Defence, trustee of the Fundación Alternativas; Carlos Martí Sempere, Doctor in International Security from the General Gutiérrez Mellado University Institute and author of the report; José Enrique de Ayala, member of the European Affairs Council of the Fundación Alternativas, and author of the report (Row 0), and Jesús Núñez, co-director of the Institute for Studies on Conflict and Humanitarian Action, and author of the report (Row 0). The event will be moderated by Esther Rebollo, deputy director of Público.
To register to attend in person, click here. To register online via YouTube, click here.
