ABSTRACT
The Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in the area of security and defence is a policy dedicated to deepening defence and security among European Union (EU) members, upholding their connections and commitments to an integrated structure of investments and knowledge base and logistics framework. Interoperability capacities and information sharing schemes are under the PESCO priorities and concentrate the leading efforts on what trust may indicate, which creates a regional security and defence identity. This chapter’s main argument is that regional security and defence strengthening is marked by interdependencies that may be more effective by considering the national ties through frameworks of cooperation that have upheld the defence cooperation project since 2017.
In this regard, Portugal may be one of the important hubs for permitting connections and external ties within PESCO projects, in which the Portuguese Atlantic interface could boost EU projection in the area. Thus, the autonomy of the defence capacity-building prospects is not simply defined as the separation of the resources available to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the EU but is opposed to this: the concentration of defined efforts through the association of the demands of the national states and the regimes accordingly, and in a complementary way. Finally, considering that some source of moral dimension can be achieved through the capability collaboration scheme in its various forms, critical common values can be upheld, such as the projects that boost the use of artificial intelligence.
