Introduction: The Role of the EU in International Peace and Security

In recent decades the European Union (EU) has quantitatively and qualitatively increased its commitment to crisis response. This has come as a result of the many challenges that have emerged, particularly in a post-Cold War context, where old and new problems have surfaced in a changed political context, prompting a more active response from the EU. The end of the Cold War and the two decades that followed brought to the international agenda new outlooks in terms of the challenges and opportunities ahead, which assumed a clear intra-state and transnational dimension. International terrorism, illicit trafficking and organised crime along with multifaceted challenges to the state’s ruling authorities, civil warfare and intra- and inter-state violence are some examples of the multi-dimensional nature of threats to international security and stability. Growing interdependence and the dismantling of old barriers have allowed for regime transition and the recognition of new states in what became the post-Soviet space, along with the expression of freedoms hitherto constrained under communist rule.