INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PRECONDITIONS FOR THE FORMATION OF THE EUROPEAN DEFENSE UNION

INTRODUCTION. At present, the European Union in the security area is represented by a wide list of institutions, bodies and structures. They formed in stages, essentially evolving “from Maastricht to Lisbon”. As the result of the legal evolution the European Union the constitutional documents contain the rules of law that allow to apply the enhanced cooperation in different areas and to approach the necessary flexibility to various integration processes. In addition, as the result of this work, was launched Permanent Structured Security Cooperation format.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The article is based on treaties, declarations of States and doctrinal research on the law of treaties. The author relies on various methods to reach their conclusions, among which treaty interpretation is most frequently used.RESEARCH RESULTS. In November 2017, the Ministers signed a common notification on the Permanent Structured Cooperation and handed it over to the High Representative to the Council. In December of the same year, at the European Union leaders summit the start of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (European Defense Union) format was proclaimed. In March 2018, the Council approved a resolution defining the list of projects that are to be launched in PESCO. This circumstance had a sign effect and now new security mechanism of the EU obviously should be taken into account in Russian and the EU relations strengthening European security area.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. In the current geopolitical turbulence, the Russian Federation's relations with Western and Western European partners are going through “hard times”, and Russia is perceived more as a “threat” than as a “good neighbor” and partner in the security area. In such case, the legal evolution analysis of the defense and security cooperation mechanism described in this article will be useful for understanding the prospects of the potential new form of cooperation between Russia and the EU in peace strengthening and security in the European region