Political and Security Committee, PSC

: Treaty of Nice (Photo: European Commission)

Political and Security Committee, PSC

The Lisbon Treaty Art. 38 TEU is a new legal base for the Political and Security Committee. It monitors the international situation and implementation of the common foreign and security policy and exercises political control with crises management operations.

Already the Treaty of Nice gave the Political and Security Committee the task of undertaking political supervision of the EU Military Committee and the EU Military Staff in their conduct of EU military operations and the activities of the planned 60,000 men strong EU Rapid Reaction Force.

The committee is composed of the heads of the member state foreign offices. They meet once a month in Brussels to prepare the foreign policy part of the General Council meetings for their foreign ministers.

The committee is led by the new "foreign minister".

See Common foreign and security policy

Notes

Previously known as POCO or POCO in French, but renamed in 2000.

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