On July 4th, the Council published the Joint Action 2008/550/CFSP of June 23th, establishing a European Security and Defence College (ESDC) and repealing Joint Action 2005/575/CFSP.  The ESDC will provide training in the field of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) at the strategic level in order to develop and promote a common understanding of ESDP among civilian and military personnel.

Following the conclusions set up in a report presented by the Steering Committee at the end of 2007, the Political and Security Committee (PSC) recommended that the Council amend the Joint Action 2005/575/CE which established the creation of a European Security and Defence College (ESDC).

In the light of these new joint action, the ESDC will provide training in the field of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) at the strategic level in order to develop and promote a common understanding of ESDP among civilian and military personnel, and to identify and disseminate, through its training activities, best practice in relation to various ESDP issues.

With this purpose, the College will be organized as a network between the institutes, colleges, academies, universities and institutions within the European Union (EU) dealing with security and defence policy issues and the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), also establishing close links with EU institutions and relevant EU agencies.

The main objectives of the College will be to:

• Further enhance the European security culture within ESDP.
• Promote a better understanding of ESDP as an essential part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).
• Provide EU instances with knowledgeable personnel able to work efficiently on all ESDP matters.
• Provide Member States’ administrations and staff with knowledgeable personnel familiar with EU policies, institutions and procedures.
• Help promote professional relations and contacts among training participants.

Training activities organized by the College, will involve different types of courses such as the ESDP High Level Course, the ESDP Orientation Course, and ESDP courses for specialised audiences or with specific focus.

Those activities will be reinforced by the establishment of relations between the institutes engaged in the network, the development and production of training material for EU training in ESDP, establishment of an alumni network between former training participants, providing contributions to the annual EU training programme in ESDP, as well as installing and running an Internet-Based Advanced Distance Learning (IDL) System to support the ESDC training activities.

As part of the ESDC network, the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) will support the ESDC training activities, in particular through EU ISS publications and by providing lectures given by EU ISS researchers as well as by making available its website within and for the Internet-Based Advanced Distance Learning (IDL) System.

All ESDC training activities will be open to participation by nationals of all Member States and acceding States. The ESDC training activities will in principle be also open to participation of nationals of candidate countries and, as appropriate, of third States. Participants shall be civilian and military personnel dealing with strategic aspects in the field of ESDP.

European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP)

The European Union's European security and defence policy (ESDP) includes the gradual framing of a common defence policy which might in time lead to a common defence. The European security and defence policy (ESDP) aims to allow the Union to develop its civilian and military capacities for crisis management and conflict prevention at international level, thus helping to maintain peace and international security, in accordance with the United Nations Charter. The ESDP, which does not involve the creation of a European army, is developing in a manner that is compatible and coordinated with NATO.