On 6 March the first Council meeting in formation of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) took place. PESCO was established by the EU Council on 11 December 2017 with the objective of deepening defence cooperation amongst EU Member States.

During the FAC meeting,  a roadmap has been adopted in order to provide strategic direction and guidance on how to structure further work on both processes and governance, including for projects and in relation to the sequencing of the fulfilment of commitments. The roadmap also provides a timeline for agreement on possible future projects, as well as a common set of governance rules for projects to be adopted by the Council by the end of June 2018.

Furthermore, Ministers formally adopted the first 17 PESCO projects as well as a list of the respective Member States participating. The projects cover areas such as training, capability development and operational readiness in the field of defence. According to HR/VP Federica Mogherini, this FAC has represented a historical moment as PESCO means the birth of the European Union of Defense and Security after years of talks, and it will be necessary to make sure that resources to meet the expectations are provided, and instruments to mobilize the resources are created. HR/VP Mogherini also announced that 74 concrete actions shared by EU and NATO will be deployed in the field of security and highlighted the full complementarity and full coherence between EU defense strengthening and NATO cooperation.