EPF: Fostering Differentiation with Flexibility, or Contemplating CSDP Out of the Box

The establishment of European Peace Facility (EPF) occurred in an era when European Union began to vindicate its resolution to achieve strategic autonomy by pushing forward a number of initiatives on the field of security and defence. Nevertheless, the main obstacle that hindered these initiatives was the low level of cooperation among member states in this field, due to the fact that security and defence belong to the core politics of a state and cooperation in the EU is delivered at a supranational level. But, as war in Ukraine became an imminent threat to European interests, it motivated the reflexes of all member states. The outcome of that was an upgraded function of the EPF, that broke a lot of European taboos concerning military intervention. By using the theory of European integration, this article pursues to examine the way that member states enhanced their level of cooperation in the field of security and defence, albeit their differences, and describe the mechanism that fostered this outcome.