POLICY BRIEF December 2024 A FEMINIST FOREIGN POLICY APPROACH TO EU SECURITY AND DEFENCE A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS ABSTRACT The global order is pronouncedly turbulent with multiple crises unfolding around us, including armed conflict and war. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the war in Gaza have amplified the feeling of the EU and the rest of the world being insecure and vulnerable to military threat. Meanwhile, the EU has sought to prevent gendered inequalities and injustices through the adoption of Gender Action Plans and taking an active stance on the UN Women Peace and Security(WPS) Agenda. Several EU member states have adopted feminist foreign policies(FFPs), seeking to combine that move with increased military expenditure in times of instability in Europe. Seemingly, they see no contradiction in spending more money on defence and committing themselves to feminist global transformations. Similarly, the EU has adopted a range of initiatives aimed at enhancing its Common Security and Defence Policy(CSDP), with some of those initiatives containing a commitment to gender equality and justice globally. While the EU is nowhere near adopting a full-scale feminist stance on defence and war, it could engage in a more thoroughgoing set of reflections on what an explicit feminist approach could bring to the EU as a global security actor and involve several stakeholders in such deliberations. Moreover, the Union's CSDP initiatives should be informed by intersectionality, taking cues from some of the member states' FFPs in this regard. This policy brief reflects on the specific question of whether it would be possible for the EU to adopt a feminist approach to security and defence policy, assessing the Union's feminist credentials to date, and providing a set of policy recommendations on the compatibility between FFP and enhanced military expenditure. AUTHOR DR ANNIKA BERGMAN ROSAMOND Associate Professor of International Relations and Gender The University of Edinburgh IN PARTNERSHIP WITH