The Path to European Defence

Book excerpt: After the Internal Market and the Introduction of the Euro, the European Union is making the decisive steps towards the next large project on the way to European unification, which is European Defence. The recent Iraqi crisis has shown that a common European foreign policy is more necessary than ever. In spite of this shortfall, there has been important progress: The European crisis intervention force, such as it was defined in Helsinki in 1999, has already been deployed successfully in two operations. Still, creating a European Defence is an ongoing process, where Europe has to continue to improve its capabilities. The direction that the European Union will have to take in the coming years is indicated by the European Convention, which has proposed to create a European Minister of Foreign Affairs and a European Armaments, Research and Military Capabilities Agency. Within the European Parliament, there is a large majority for the necessity of a European Defence. This is demonstrated by the contributions of representatives of the four major political groups in this book. It also corresponds with the preferences of public opinion. The draft of a European Security Strategy presented by Javier Solana in June 2003 is a good step towards a European Foreign and Security Policy, which will be able to guarantee the security of the European citizens and to defend the interests of the European Union in the world. High-ranking European personalities, such as Javier Solana, Guy Verhofstadt, Erkii Liikanen and Philippe Busquin have made valuable contributions to this book. The authors set out to identify where we stand on defence and what remains to be done to help Europe evolve in the changing global context of the 21st century.