The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought war back to the European continent and led to considerable shifts in member states´ foreign policies. The foreign policy unity of EU member states as well as the shift of long-lasting security and defence taboos surprised. We use these processes of change as a starting point to set the scene for the special issue and its main research question: in what manner, if at all, the EU has come of age as a foreign and security actor during Russia’s war on Ukraine?

The roundtable uses the notion of an EU “Zeitenwende” - a turning point in its foreign policy actions with a key catalyst being Russia’s war on Ukraine - as a starting point to interrogate in what manner, if at all, the EU has come of age as a foreign and security actor during Russia’s war on Ukraine. The EU´s comprehensive reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine surprised observers, especially the firm collective stance of EU member states. These shifts in national foreign policy positions have been categorized as “Zeitenwende” at the level of member states. But how, if at all, have these national shifts translated into an EU Zeitenwende?

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought war back to the European continent and led to considerable change in EU member states´ foreign policies. The consequential degree of EU foreign policy unity, as well as shifts in long-lasting national and collective security and defence taboos, has represented a significant departure from past practices. We use these processes of change as a starting point to set the scene for this roundtable and to inform its main research question: in what manner, if at all, has the EU come of age as a foreign and security actor during Russia’s war on Ukraine?

This introduction situates our discussion into the wider scholarly debates on actorness and the EU´s geopolitical ambitions. It conceptually develops the analogy of “coming of age” to examine a prospective maturation process of the EU´s capacity as a foreign and security actor. In doing so, it not only interrogates what the EU as a mature foreign and security actor would look like, but it also develops the framework, identifies five maturation processes and reflects on necessary caveats for drawing inferences about the state of maturation of the EU as foreign and security actor.

In this paper we study the implication of the ongoing war in Ukraine for the EU’s coming of age as a security actor with a particular focus on the relationship between EU and NATO in the emerging European security structure. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, and its subsequent war against Ukraine, represents a watershed for European security. Confronted by the direst security crisis in decades, EU policymakers were forced to fundamentally rethink their security and defence policies and the role of the EU in European defence. So far, NATO has returned to its core tasks of territorial defence and deterrence, and the EU has strengthened its role as a comprehensive crisis response actor. What does this mean for the European security architecture? Is a clearer division of labour emerging between the two, with the EU taking more responsibility for European security in a changing geopolitical environment? In the paper, we argue that the war in Ukraine has functioned as a critical juncture that unblocked a process that for years have been blocked by inter-institutional conflict. Based on the existing literature on crisis, we moreover argue that the recent decisions made in response to the war are likely to have lasting implications. The paper sets out to explain the implications of the war on the European security architecture in general, on the EU and NATO as security actors, as well as on EU-NATO relations.

This paper revisits core pieces of literature of EU foreign policy studies to gauge in how far the endogenous institutional quality of EU foreign policy structures has matured. In (re-)applying two institutional tests, it will try to assess whether the EU’s foreign policy capabilities as still so unequivocally below state level. First, it will return to the ‘capabilities-expectations gap’ (Hill 1993) to investigate the quality of the institutional structure in foreign policy and in how far the EU’s institutions fulfil general functions of foreign policy. Second, it will study whether the EU still is a case of ‘procedure as substitute for policy’ (Wallace and Allen 1977). The results of this assessment will allow us to take stock of long-term, slow change in institutional quality that may otherwise be overlooked. It will contribute to the overall assessment of the EU’s maturation by providing two distinct assessments on institutional scope as well as how well this scope translates into relevant policy stances.

Almost thirty years since the Maastricht Treaty provided an explicit legal basis in the health realm, the EU declared global health an “essential pillar” of its external action. Yet, it is still seeking to “come of age” as a global health actor. This might be facilitated by the securitisation of health, which was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the crisis was often framed as a war against a common enemy. However, the literature is yet to establish whether these analogies were systematically embraced by EU supranational policy entrepreneurs, signalling a Zeitenwende – or “epochal tectonic shift” – in the EU’s health-related discourse. Through an analysis of key strategic documents and public statements, this article determines the extent to which COVID-19 drove the securitisation of global health in the EU. Relatedly, it discusses whether this framing might be conducive to an enhanced EU actorness on the world stage. The article concludes that, after COVID-19 struck, some EU institutions did intensify their “health security” rhetoric in pursuit of an expanded role. While this shift was neither widespread nor enduring enough to warrant the “epochal” label, it nonetheless risks leading the EU towards a narrower, short-sighted conception of its global health actorness.

Russia’s war on Ukraine brought back the debate about the European Union’s strategic autonomy ambitions in security and defence. The notion had gradually slipped off the EU’s radar following the post-2016 thematic shift in strategic autonomy discussions to global economic interdependencies. Our article offers the first systematic exploration of the strategic autonomy debate in security and defence since the beginning of the war, while also tracing the emergence and revival of the concept over the past 25 years. By unpacking the EU’s quest for strategic autonomy as a process of maturation since the late 1990s, we examine the extent to which the EU has grown into an autonomous security and defence actor. We further discuss the implications of maturation for EU security and defence policy. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with policymakers and foreign policy experts in seven selected member states, our study brings the underexplored aspect of national acceptability of EU external action to the forefront. We show that despite prevailing differences in underlying national beliefs, perceptions and goals about security and defence, which have hampered discussions of European strategic autonomy, significant progress has been made regarding both ideational and material aspects of EU security and defence policy.