Mature at last? The EU’s role in Europe’s changing security architecture

In this paper we study the implication of the ongoing war in Ukraine for the EU’s coming of age as a security actor with a particular focus on the relationship between EU and NATO in the emerging European security structure. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, and its subsequent war against Ukraine, represents a watershed for European security. Confronted by the direst security crisis in decades, EU policymakers were forced to fundamentally rethink their security and defence policies and the role of the EU in European defence. So far, NATO has returned to its core tasks of territorial defence and deterrence, and the EU has strengthened its role as a comprehensive crisis response actor. What does this mean for the European security architecture? Is a clearer division of labour emerging between the two, with the EU taking more responsibility for European security in a changing geopolitical environment? In the paper, we argue that the war in Ukraine has functioned as a critical juncture that unblocked a process that for years have been blocked by inter-institutional conflict. Based on the existing literature on crisis, we moreover argue that the recent decisions made in response to the war are likely to have lasting implications. The paper sets out to explain the implications of the war on the European security architecture in general, on the EU and NATO as security actors, as well as on EU-NATO relations.