This public lecture is now available as: MP3 (please listen to the file below in three parts) and PDF (as a courtesy to the presenter, please contact him for permission to refer to his PowerPoint notes for the purpose of further research).

In this presentation, Dr Schreer will argue that the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) is facing a significant crisis. It played no role in the Libya Operation in 2011. There is also no major breakthrough in EU-NATO relations. In the face of massive pressure on defence budgets, European countries have not taken the initiative for deeper integration of their armed forces. Instead, they cling to their national autonomy when it comes to defence policy. This paper contends that CSDP still lacks coherent strategic guidance about its role in European and international security. Even before Libya, two of the most powerful players, the United Kingdom and the France, agreed on defence cooperation that actually circumvents the CSDP process. Similar to the European economic crisis, the current state of CSDP begs the question whether integration of European security and defence policy has run its course.

Dr Ben Schreer is Senior Lecturer at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the ANU. He specialises in US defence policy in Asia, NATO and European strategic affairs. Dr Schreer studied Political Science, English and German Literature at Kiel University. He received his PhD from the same university. Prior to coming to the ANU, he worked at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, the University of Konstanz, and the Aspen Institute Germany in Berlin. Dr Schreer is also the managing editor of Security Challenges (www.securitychallenges.org.au), Australia’s leading academic journal on defence policy; and a research associate in the ‘NATO in a Changing World’ program of the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies in Oslo.  

To view the flyer for this event please see: European Security and Defence Policy after Libya: What next?