Próby ożywienia polityki bezpieczeństwa i obrony Unii Europejskiej

The European Union’s security and defense policy in the 21st century has been stagnant. An important cause was the fi nancial crisis of 2008 and the recession that persists in the following years. This stagnation deepened in the years 2014–2016 as a result of the migration crisis and British decision to leave the EU. A factor that is constantly deepening the diffi culties is the rise in Euroscepticism following the enlargement of the EU in 2004. It currently dominates the Visegrad Group countries,including Poland.The paradox of the situation is that in crisis conditions emerged ideas for the creation of the European army. They were also announced by the leading Polish Eurosceptic Jarosław Kaczyński. The constant demand put forward by supporters of the revitalization of the CSDP is the proposal to create an EU operational center (headquarters) to manage crisis management operations. The author argues that the European Union does not exploit the chances of reviving the CSDP and that the EU’s essential weakness has emerged in terms of its security policy during the Ukraine crisis erupted in Autumn 2013 and the migration crisis of 2014-2016. The attempts to revive the EU’s security and defense policy are: A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy (adopted in June 2016), the establishment a European Defence Found and an inclusive and ambitious Permanent Structured Cooperation – PESCO (both in June 2017). It is hard to expect,however, how this last steps will mobilize the EU member states to break the deadlock in security and defense policy. Key words: The European Union, Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), civil and military capabilities, crisis management, EU operational centre, defence budget, fi nancial and economic crisis, Euroscepticism, nationalism, Brexit, European army, security strategy