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A protocol to the Lisbon Treaty giving exemptions for neutral states from the EU's security and defence policy is the only effective way to retain active or military neutrality, writes Karen Devine 

THE EUROPEAN Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) are respective attempts to co-ordinate the foreign policies of 27 member states of the European Union, and to create a European military capability to realise the interests and goals of the union. Many regard the realisation of the ESDP as pushing the last piece of the EU's political union puzzle into place.