100 Fact Sheets to Understand European Defence

Since the end of the Second World War, the issue of European defence has been one of the most sensitive, complex and strategic challenges facing European integration. It crystallises both the hopes for a united and sovereign Europe and the tensions between national sovereignties, historical legacies and external alliances. Long marginalised in the process of European integration, defence has gradually gained in importance as crises and geopolitical upheavals have affected the continent and its peripheries.The major events of the 20th century – the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the Balkan conflicts – and more recent challenges – international terrorism, instability in the Middle East, global strategic rivalries, the war in Ukraine – have all highlighted the need for Europe to take charge of its own security. European defence has not been built according to a linear or uniform logic, but in a dynamic process of momentum, blockages, compromises and adaptations.