European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) in the First Ten Years (1999-2009)

Abstract

During the first ten years, the European Union (EU) has made remarkable progress in the security and defence matters. Twenty-three civilian and military ESDP missions have been staged for the crisis management in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia and contributed thereby greatly to international peace and security. In July 2009, Javier Solana, the EU's High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), looking back on the last decade, concluded that ESDP is no longer an aspiration, but a reality and the EU is a global actor with an important role in the management of global challenges.However, the Member States have to do still more for implementing ESDP missions effectively. Among others, ESDP's capabilities need to be developed. Especially, in the case of military missions, ESDP frequently suffered both from the delay of the operation-beginning and from the shortage of the personnel. Notwithstanding the fact that nowadays the battlegroups (BGs) are available and deployable at very high readiness, they cannot never be used, because the Member States cannot agree on the role of the BGs and ESDP itself. The discrepancy in Member States' foreign policy priorities hinders the ESDP missions from getting adequate strength.To be able to go into action rapidly, ESDP would also need a permanent Headquarters to plan and conduct ESDP's operations autonomously, and the relations with the NATO activities would have to be defined without ambiguity. Since the USA has great influence on European countries, there is some fear that ESDP may be incorpolated into the NATO operations and serve only as the civilian and financial resources. If the fear turned out true, ESDP would lose its characteristics as a civil-military global power.To sum up, the Member States have to make advances in finding a common foreign policy ground and genuinely speak and act with one voice. This is the most important thing for the ESDP in coming years, “to reinforce the European identity and its independence in order to promote peace, security and progress in Europe and in the world” (The Treaty on EU).