Small EU Member States and the European Security and Defence Integration

One of the most researched topics regarding small states in the EU concerns small member states and the Union’s security and defence policy. This should not come as a surprise as in these areas the interests and amount of power of small member states can diverge considerably from those of bigger EU member states, as well as their strategies do. Given the unprecedented progress that has been achieved by the Juncker Commission in the areas of security and defence integration, the goal of this chapter is to identify the new challenges and opportunities with which small EU member states have to deal. To this aim, it takes stock of previous research on small EU member states in ESDP/CSDP and also explores primary resources. The first part of the chapter discusses the developments concerning security and defence integration in the EU. The second part analyses the main debates in the literature on small EU member states in ESDP/CSDP. The third part builds upon the previous two in order to present the new challenges and opportunities that small member states confront in these areas.