The European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) - European Union as a hard power?

Résumé du document

With the treaty of Maastricht's coming into force in 1993, the European Community became the European Union and the Common Foreign and Security Policy became one of the three pillars of this new Union. This step of the European construction was very important because it signified the will of the member states of the European Union to start a real political integration and therefore to unify their foreign policies. It is the international context that accelerated the process of creation of a common European defence policy within the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Firstly, at the end of the Cold War, Europe stopped being a strategic priority for the United States and since then there has been a decrease in the importance given by Washington to the security of Europe. Secondly, during the 1990s the European states did not manage to coordinate to solve the various conflicts within their own continent (Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo) and in each case NATO has had to intervene under the command of the US. Thirdly, the European Union had the will to become a stronger and more visible actor on the international stage. However, the two major military powers of Europe, the UK and France, had two opposing positions regarding European Security: where the UK feared that a common defense policy would cause the US to revert to isolationism, France believed that the existence of a common European Security and Defence Policy would lead the US to appreciate Europe as a serious ally. But considering the international context, the head of state of France and the head of government of the UK decided to launch the European Security and Defence Policy with the joint-declaration of Saint-Malo on December 1998.

Extraits

[...] In that second case, it is the whole credibility of the European political integration that would be endangered. Bibliography: - Joseph S. NYE, The paradox of American power: why the world's only superpower can't go it alone, Oxford University Press 2002. - Joylon HOWORTH, Security and Defence Policy in the European Union, The European Union Series, Palgrave Macmillan, New York - Jeremy GHEZ, F. Stephen LARRABEE, France and NATO, Survival pp 77 Report on the implementation of the European Security Strategy, Providing security in a changing world, S407/08, Bruxelles décembre 2008. [...]

[...] - Claude-France ARNOULD et al., What ambitions for European defence in 2020?, European Union Institute for Strategic Studies, Ed. A. de Vasconcelos, Paris - Jean-Loup SAMAAN, Does France still matter in international security affairs?, 2nd Class of the seminar of Strategic issues of contemporary world politics. [...]

[...] Moreover these two countries are currently governed by two very different leaders Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, having very different conceptions of the way diplomatic relations between EU members should work and of the necessary defence budget of such European powers. Furthermore, Eastern European countries, which have benefitted from the enlargement of the EU, do not often share the same views as President Sarkozy concerning the strengthening of ESDP because they neither want to weaken NATO nor to damage relations with the United States. The same rationale can be applied to the UK. [...]

[...] The European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) - European Union as a hard power? Introduction: With the treaty of Maastricht's coming into force in 1993, the European Communities became the European Union and the Common Foreign and Security Policy became one of the three pillars of this new Union. This step of the European construction was very important because it signified the will of the member states of the EU to start a real political integration and therefore to unify their foreign policies. [...]

[...] A common European Security Strategy was even created in 2003 and, with the treaty of Lisbon entry into force on January 1st 2010, the European Union has now a High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. At this moment, more than 20 EU-led missions have taken place under the control of ESDP. However, the European ambition to become a major and unified actor on the international stage by the means of ESDP as the tool of a European hard power (as defined below) faces important strategic challenges. [...]