Bertelsmann Stiftung (ed.)

Julian Lindley-French, Franco Algieri

A European Defence Strategy

Format Type
PDF
Date of publication
15/05/2004
Edition
1. edition

Price

Free of charge

Description

The security of the Union and that of its friends and allies requires a holistic, strategic civil-military vision that combines achievable means and ends. Military defence is but a small part of the effort and military power is most certainly not an end in itself. However, for the EU to be a legitimate and effective security actor, it must possess a limited but credible military defence component embedded firmly in the ‘assertive multilateralism’ of the Union’s wider security responsibilities.

The European Security Strategy (ESS) upon which this strategy is based is a pre-strategic concept. It must be rapidly hardened into a mechanism that defines when, where, why and how the European Union will act. Only such a strategic concept can generate the consensus that will in turn weld all the EU’s security tools (aid and development, prevention of strategic intrusion by terrorists, robust policing and armed forces) into the single institutional framework that contemporary security demands.