Bilateral Europe? JY Le Drian is looking for his way
(BRUSSELS2 to Chicago) Certainly in Chicago, the new French President François Hollande “ recalled that for France, what was important was European defense ". But, concretely, the avenues for strengthening Defense Europe still seem rather in their infancy. It is too early to talk about it, we say on the French side. “The important thing for us is this sequence of NATO ” is confirmed in the entourage of the new Minister of Defense, Jean-Yves Le Drian.
Pragmatism and bilateral paths
« We must move forward with pragmatism “says our interlocutor. Thus the establishment of a European headquarters - an old French demand, (re)put on the table during the French presidency in 2008 - seems, for the moment, to have to be postponed until later. Concept of reality obliges. " We can clearly see that there is major opposition, that of the United Kingdom, which is not going to give in ". And to strengthen the Europe of defence, we would prefer to go through a multiple approach. An idea would be like this: to open the Lancaster House agreement (Franco-British), or at least certain options to other countries, to the Poles, to the Italians ". A la carte operation in a way. In Paris, we also seem to observe with a certain mistrust the functioning of the European External Action Service and of the European Union. " We will not necessarily go through the European Union of 27 but through bilateral channels, the deepening of certain multilateral options confirms our interlocutor close to JY Le Drian.
The European Defense Identity, an Outdated Concept or a Future?
From a semantic point of view, rather than a European pillar in NATO, on the French side, we prefer to speak "European Defense Identity". A rather vague concept and to tell the truth... dated. The concept of "European defense identity" was widely used in the 1980s and 90s in the beginnings of a European desire for a presence on the international and security scene. It was reinforced, lastly, in 1999 at the Washington summit of NATO (for the 50th anniversary of the Alliance). This term was then mainly used to define relations between the European Union and NATO, in particular access to NATO resources by the European Union. The Berlin Plus agreement is the concrete translation of this, an agreement that is now "moribund" since it is no longer used except in an operation promised to be closed (Eufor Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina). In the meantime, the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) was born, replaced in the Lisbon Treaty by the Common European Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), and several structures which have enabled the European Union to affirm, at least in part, its autonomy.
We can therefore only be challenged by the reuse of this terminology... It will therefore take a few more weeks before the new French Minister of Defense and his counterpart of Foreign Affairs come to specify what he (they) intend(s). ) behind this term. We can't wait!
NB: to dive back into history, you can read the precious document written by Fabien Terpan, "Foreign policy, security, defence: the slow progression of political Europe" (here).
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