Security for People and Planet: Rethinking EU Defence and Security Policy in the Age of Climate and Environmental Crisis

This EEB position paper sets out a people- and planet-centred approach to EU defence and security policy. Adopted by the EEB Council on 25 November 2025, it argues that Europe’s response to growing geopolitical instability must be rooted in human security, peace, democracy, environmental justice and international law. The paper warns against a narrow militarised approach to security and calls for EU leaders to address the interconnected threats of conflict, inequality, climate breakdown, biodiversity loss and pollution. It outlines 12 actions for a holistic security agenda, including conflict prevention, democratic oversight of defence spending, a ban on arms exports to countries violating human rights or international law, an end to fossil fuel and material dependencies on authoritarian regimes, and the protection of environmental and social safeguards from defence-sector exceptionalism.