Gummersbach’s dialogue… Useful questions

(B2 in Gummersbach) How to improve the foreign policy of the European Union at the time of Brexit? Or make defense not an empty word? About twenty young French and German students and doctoral students gathered around these themes, as part of the 4th junior seminar of the Franco-German security dialogue within the Theodor Heuss Academy in the outskirts of Cologne, in which I intervened at the invitation of Laurent Borzillo and Maximilian Losch.

A seat on the Security Council for the EU?

Should there be a seat for the European Union on the United Nations Security Council? Are the sanctions vis-à-vis Russia effective, how to put an end to them? Should we find more effective decision-making processes within the European Union (with the end of unanimity)? Is setting up a European army a solution in terms of defence? Here are some of the questions (and solutions) to which the 'seminarians' have tackled, against the backdrop of the eternal questioning of the effects of Brexit on the Union's foreign and defense policy.

The danger of a two-speed Europe

The possibility of a two-speed or multi-speed Europe evolving is perceived as a “risk” by these young people. Rather, they advocate a policy of small steps to strengthen European integration, by playing on a few essential elements: firstly, increasing the budgets allocated to defense (especially in the Member States), secondly, creating two specific HQs (headquarters).

Create two HQs

These two headquarters would be devoted to two types of threats, felt or real: one to deal with terrorist threats, the other for invasions; the first rather intended for the threats in progress against the Western countries on the one hand, the other by the threats to which the Eastern countries consider themselves exposed on the other. These HQs would be established not in Brussels but in the Member States, to facilitate their appropriation by them.

Ideas to discuss... which gave me other ideas on

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)