As part of the university course "EU-Außenbeziehungen", Dr. Kammel held a presentation about Austria's role in the EU's Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). The audience learned about the topic’s significance right from the very start: Out of three main threats considered ‘likely to happen’ - namely pandemics, terrorist attacks, and blackouts - two have occurred in Austria over the past two years, and a third was recently just averted. In general, Austria’s secure environment is experiencing deterioration and with a focus on "hybrid threats", which refer to acts of influence below the threshold of an armed attack that seek to impose their will on an adversary by exploiting identified weaknesses.

The guest speaker stressed that CESDP instruments are sufficient when it comes to coping with the identified threats - they only need to be used more consistently. The focus now is to strengthen the EU's own capabilities (also financially) so that it does not always have to rely on external partners (such as the United States), strengthen multilateralism and human rights, and work toward greater resilience to strengthen the EU's neighbors so that crises do not approach the EU (in the geographical sense). Continuing to strengthen the CESDP means, eo ipso, more security for Austria, which, of course, has to actively play its role; one need only think of increasing the resilience of the military barracks and reducing their dependence on civilian infrastructure.