Heading for the application of the "community method" to security and defence of the European Union by means of permanent structured cooperation?

Abstract

The Treaty of Lisbon, in line with the failed Constitutional Treaty and in the sequence of several initiatives which had taken place, came to provide for the mechanism of permanent structured cooperation. The goal of this mechanism is to enable the arising of a vanguard of Member States, eventually ready to form the embryo of a future European Union's exclusive defence system. Although permanent structured cooperation represents a step towards the application of the "community method" to security and defence of the European Union, it doesn't still fit in that pattern. Only future can tell, if permanent structured cooperation is likely to provide the European Union with a security and defence policy based on the "community method".