Historical Background of SEDE From the Pleven Plan to the 2016 EU Global Strategy: A new role for European Defence. With the changing nature of foreign threats close to Europe’s borders as well as violent conflicts globally, new forms of defensive cooperation are required. What role should the Member States’ armed forces play? What should the extent of military cooperation at the EU level be in the future? “Europe is an economic giant, a political dwarf, and a military worm” - Mark Eyskens, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs (1989-1992) “If we succeed, […], Europe’s role in the world will be respected and listened to, not only as the economic it already is, but as a political power which will talk on equal terms to the greatest powers on our planet” - Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, President of the European Convention (2002-2003) On 24 October 1950, France’s Prime Minister René Pleven proposed a plan that aimed to create a supranational European Army. It was the basis for the European defence Community, whose constituent treaty was signed two years later by the governments of France, Western Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries. The project was abandoned in 1954, following the refusal of the French and Italian parliaments to ratify the treaty. In the following Cold War decades, most of Western Europe’s was under the NATO military
umbrella, while the Eastern Block was associated to the USSR via the Warsaw Pact. The issue of defence came back into the EU agenda during the final years of the Cold War, as it was clear that Russia could no longer fill its former pivotal geopolitical and military role. Since the 1990s, there have been various attempt to create a shared EU security and defence policy, ranging from the Saint-Malo declaration, the Helsinki Headline Goals, the Petersberg tasks up until 2016 EU Global Strategy. Up until today, several institutions and instruments, including the European External Action Service and a European Defence Fund (EDF), have been created. Between January 2013 and mid-2016, 36 EU overseas ‘crisis management’ missions (mostly non-military) have been launched. With regards to defence, the EU is currently strongly relying on NATO - as many of its Member States belong to the Alliance.