Is Reform of CFSP Possible? Factors Driving Change in CFSP-CSDP

This paper examines why the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has experienced little institutional reform since the Lisbon Treaty and assesses the plausibility of future changes. While earlier decades saw successive reforms, in particular with the Maastricht and the Lisbon treaties, no major institutional evolution has occurred since 2009, despite the existence of unused treaty provisions and recurring debates on supranationalisation, qualified majority voting (QMV), and common defence. The most important evolutions have occurred outside the framework of CFSP through the industrial policy and the internal market. Through a liberal intergovernmentalist lens, the paper argues that the core barrier to reform lies in persistent divergences in national preferences, particularly concerning qualified majority voting and the role of supranational institutions, and transition to a common defence. A process-tracing analysis of two periods—the post-Lisbon years and the early 2020s—shows how both internal factors (domestic politics, public opinion) and external shocks (Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Brexit, shifting US commitments) have influenced these preferences. Although recent crises have generated momentum for greater EU strategic autonomy and revived debates on QMV, their impact remains ambiguous. The paper concludes that, despite growing public support and selective governmental shifts, meaningful CFSP institutional reform remains unlikely without deeper convergence in national preferences and sustained political will, particularly given unanimity requirements and entrenched sovereignty concerns.