Europe The continent of Europe comprises a vast geostrategic space, whose security has been weakened in recent years. It is also, with the EU at its hear t, the cornerstone of Spain’s democratic, political, and security model, and a key framework for achieving its interests, expressing its values, and projecting its influence worldwide. Recent years have seen a rise in the risk of fragmentation within the EU, due both to the economic crisis, and to Brexit and the rise of anti-EU movements. In this context, in addition to defending its national interests, Spain is committed to playing a greater leadership role in building an effective, more integrated, and more democratically legitimate EU—an EU with a response capability, as set for th in the Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy. This revamped European model can also have a transformative positive influence on EU candidate and neighbour countries, which will contribute to common stability. In this regard, the growing demand for Europe to take on greater security responsibilities will have political and economic implications, requiring greater convergence among the European par tners as they weigh the EU’s shared threats and challenges. Spain, which has par ticipated in all of the EU military operations to date, as well as in most of the civilian missions, suppor ts moving towards a real Common Security and Defence Policy, including permanent structured 40 National Security Strategy 2017 Presidency of the Government