European Union – An actor developing its own means?

That the European Union is an actor on many international stages is undisputed. It is also common understanding that the actor EU has many different qualities. It acts – and is able to act - in quite different ways e.g. within trade policy and security policy. It is an actor with many faces. The proposed paper takes a more detailed look at the aspect of developing military resources in order to assess the quality of the EU as an actor within the European security and defence policy. Based on three different dimensions – compatibility of the national resources, defence technology development and common policy structures – the paper argues that although the actor European Union does not always succeed in finding its own way (often due to member states'' national politics) there are some areas in which remarkable developments have been achieved. But even more important, the European Union has managed to act as an actor and not only as a sum of its members. The most important factors influencing the development of the actor qualities of the European Union within the development of military resources have been the common conduct of different operations and the establishment of common agencies – foremost the satellite centre and the defence agency.