THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
The Political-Military Structures of the EU by Christoph Raab, Managing Director, COPURA GmbH ments in Europe. But by the end of the war in June 1999, it was clear to all European leaders that there was no alternative to the creation of an ESDP. Major decisions were prepared at the European Council in Cologne in June 1999 and taken in Helsinki half a year later: The EU copied to a large extent NATO’s military structures and adjusted them to its own specific needs by creating the Political and Security Committee The very beginnings: The (PSC), a military committee, a UK’s strategic turn around military staff, a Joint Situation It was in fact, a revolution in the Centre and other support and British approach to Europe, where advise structures. In those days, for over four decades it was a “lightspeed” was a term often cornerstone of British politics to used to describe the stunning ease limit defence exclusively to NATO. and swiftness with which the EU During the Cold War, Europe was set up structures in ESDP. The to a large degree free-riding on the Helsinki summit also saw the United States guaranteeing WeEUFOR – Soldier with EU-Flag in Chad adoption of the so-called “Helsinki stern Europe’s security. But there Headline Goal”, the EU’s commitwas also an element of free-riding ment to have a deployment capaciby Western Europe on the Soviet ty by 2003 of 60000 soldiers within 2 months for up to one Union to contain US power: The last few years have given a year outside of Europe. glimpse of what can happen if there is only one superpower For the next few years, the EU had a new policy area which was left. buzzing with task forces and people building structures and There is a whole mix of motivations why the EU created first procedures, often from scratch. However, trust is a hardthe Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and subseearned value and critiques kept on wandering if ESDP wasn’t quently the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), more about symbols than about substance. At the European NATO searching for a raison d’etre, EU Member States that Council in Laeken 2001, the EU declared its provisional operawant to keep on relying on the US for their security and other tional readiness in ESDP. 16 months after, the EU would start Member States searching for the right institutions to promote its first, if not so military, ESDP police mission in Bosniatheir goals. It all led to an unlikely and somewhat awkward Herzegovina – the EU’s first steps in security and defence alliance of those who wanted to answer the American call for deployment were very careful. more defence contribution by Europe and those, uneasy with the US dominating global affairs after 1989, who saw an opportunity for the hour of Europe. The blueprint for European How ESDP works integration also in security and defence was there and by late Over the years, the EU has built up an elaborated decision1998, the UK saw an interest in going down that road or else, making system in ESDP. The heads of State and government, the United States would loose interest in NATO. coming together in the European Council twice per year, decide about the principles and political guidelines for ESDP. The foreign ministers, meeting in the General Affairs and First steps in ESDP External Relations Council (GAERC) decide about the actual However, it took another major event to really kick-start Europolicy-making in this area. These decisions are based on pean Security and Defence Policy, the Kosovo war. It was argudeliberations going on very regularly in the PSC and are ably Tony Blair who in the days and weeks before the war had prepared by the Committe of Permanent Reprensatives the clearest idea of how much was at stake for many governWhen Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac met in December 1998 in St. Malo and formulated that “the [European] Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises”, it was an idea whose time had simply come.
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