Abstract
The article deals with the issue of developing Common Security and
Defence Policy of the European Union in its broad sense and the role of
Poland in the area of this organisation’s extended security. Having regained
full sovereignty as a result of the collapse of the bipolar confrontational East-
West system, in the new geopolitical constellation on the European continent,
Poland strove to obtain guarantees of national security from the formally
institutionalised Western world security structures. The accession of Poland to
the Euro-Atlantic security area, i.e. NATO (1999), and the European Union
(2004) was the crowning achievement of the process. Since then, Poland has
had an opportunity to directly and actively influence the EU foreign policy,
security and defensive identity. For the closest ally of the United States in
Europe, the process was very difficult to implement because the biggest EU
states, Germany and France, wanted to control foreign policy of the new
NATO and EU member states. The situation changed when Poland declared
clearly that it was all for supporting the European security structures. Since
the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half
of 2011, Poland has consistently supported the strengthening of cooperation
between member states within the Common Security and Defence Policy of
the European Union with an aim of making this organisation gain a status of
the key player in the international politics in the future.