CIAO DATE: 02/02

Through the Glass Ceiling: Towards a New Security Regime for Europe?

Anne Deighton 
Director, MPhil in European Politics and Society,  Wolfson College, University of Oxford

Joint Workshop on Europe and Transatlantic Security: Issues and Perspectives
Kandersteg, Switzerland
August 25-27 2000

The Geneva Centre for Security Policy

Introduction

The 'St Malo process' which has being taking shape since December 1998, will bring a qualitative change in the EU's role as an international institution. Many of the big initiatives that the Union undertakes are not fully understood early on - unexpected, and sometimes unintended consequences can result from the changes that the EU agrees to. It takes time for the institutional implications of major changes to emerge: the Single Act was, in the mid 80s, often seen as the 'elephant that gave birth to a mouse'; and the Maastricht Treaty as at once called too federalist, and too timid. Likewise, the exact configuration of the changes that St Malo may bring will also take time to become clear. 'Militarising' the EU, however, ends one of the last policy taboos of a 'civilian-power' European Union and breaks through the 'glass ceiling' of the EU's self-denying ordinance against the adoption of the instruments of military force which has existed since its inception. This paper assesses how far these changes got by the summer of 2000 and asks whether the last eighteen months are one stage in the messy birth of a post-Cold War pan-European defence and security regime with institutions based around NATO and the EU.

Europe's institutional configuration tends to matter more to Europeans than to our transatlantic partners; but institutions are the reality of contemporary European international politics. 'Multilateral institutionalism' too, is inescapable, and how institutions relate to each other has become an increasingly significant question. To accept this does not meant that states do not matter, for states also use institutions, as well as being shaped by institutions.

This paper will concentrate upon two institutional aspects of this topic. After an account of the current state of play, I will:

1) examine the security implications for the EU itself, arguing that security is perceived as indivisible in two ways - in its internal and external dimensions, and needing to be able to deploy the military and non-military tool-box for its implementation; and

2) explore what we may learn from the relationship between the EU and other major security providers in Europe.

I conclude with the historian's caveats about the continuing uncertainty of outcomes.

The Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP)

The emerging security system is grounded in the EU's Maastricht (1993) and Amsterdam Treaties (1999), and based upon the EU Council's Cologne Summit (June 1999), Helsinki Summit (December 1999), and Feira Summit (June 2000) reports, supported by the NATO communiqués of April and November 1999; and the St Malo process stems from the Anglo-French bilateral meeting held in the French port of St Malo in December 1998, when Blair and Chirac issued a statement that was to open the way to giving the EU the chance to use military instruments with which to pursue its policies. What does the new CESDP look like, and what is it to do?

1. Western European Union (WEU) will be brought to an end as a functioning international organisation, either totally, or in part. Whether this will require a EU Treaty amendment in December 2000 is still under discussion. It seems increasingly likely that WEU will not be completely dismantled, because of the complexities of what to do about Article V, because of pressure from its Assembly, and because of the difficulties of re-writing sections of the Amsterdam Treaty.

2. The Union is developing a common policy on security and defence with 'a capacity for autonomous action backed up by credible military capabilities and appropriate decision-making bodies . . . . The Council of the European Union would thus be able to take decisions on the whole range of political, economic and military instruments at its disposal when responding to crisis situations'. Regular (or ad hoc) meetings of the General Affairs Council, as appropriate, including, for the first time, Defence Ministers is established. A Political and Security Committee (PSC/COPS; a continuation of the former Political Committee) composed of national representatives at senior/ ambassadorial level operates under the authority of the European Council, but without any prejudice to Community competence. It will direct any military operations. An interim Military Committee (MC) has now been created, composed of the Chiefs of Defence, who would give military advice and make recommendations to the PSC, and the Chair of this Committee, who would be entitled to attend Council meetings if necessary. Military Staff (MS) from the EU member states would provide expertise, support, situation assessment and strategic planning for Petersberg Tasks.

It has been agreed that countries which are not members of the EU but which might wish to participate should be involved in decision-making both up-stream, and down-stream. However, the core decision is to be made by the Council alone. The decision-making associated with this exercise is to be taken in conformity with the EU's own procedures, both ensuring consistency and coherence (Article 3 of the EU treaty), and allowing for equality of treatment for all states.

3. The Amsterdam Treaty created a new official position: that of the High Representative of the CFSP, who was to give the CFSP a stronger administrative and international profile - 'the chief spin doctor of the EU's foreign policy', complete with early warning planning staff. The High Representative is the Secretary-General of the Foreign Affairs Council, and he is assisted by a policy planning and early warning unit, intended to give greater coherence to CFSP and the capacity to respond quickly to crises. The new High Representative is Javier Solana, formerly the Secretary-General of NATO. In November 1999, he was also given the job of Secretary-General of WEU, in part to be able to push forward the merger proposals.

4. A common European Headline Goal has been adopted for readily deployable military capabilities, and collective capability goals in the fields of command and control, intelligence and strategic transport to be formulated through voluntarily co-ordinated national and multinational efforts for the Petersberg Tasks agenda. The EU will have the power to send troops to confront security situations as set out in the Petersberg Tasks (formulated in 1992 by Western European Union: humanitarian and rescue tasks, peace-keeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peace making). An inventory of tools available has been drawn up, based on a WEU audit. The tasks would be carried through under the auspices of a lead agency like the NATO, UN, or OSCE, or, 'where appropriate, in autonomous EU actions'. The Headline Goal is that, by 2003, co-operating together voluntarily, the EU would be able to deploy rapidly and then to sustain forces capable of the full range of Petersberg Tasks in operations up to corps level (15 brigades, or 50,000-60,000 persons). The forces should be militarily self-sustaining with the necessary command control and intelligence capabilities, logistics, other combat support services and, as appropriate, air and naval elements. These should be deployable within 60 days, and also have smaller units ready for even quicker deployment. Forces should be able to remain in the field for at least a year (requiring preparation for closer to 200,000 troops). The need for co-ordinated monitoring and early warning mechanisms, greater openness of existing joint national headquarters, greater reinforcement of existing multinational rapid reaction facilities (ARRF, Eurocorps included), a European air transport command and strategic sea life capacity has also been noted.

5. These changes have been introduced with the support of NATO, and in parallel to NATO's own re-structuring. After the cold war, a re-structuring of capabilities and requirement assessments, the 'Revolution in Military Affairs' provoked hand-wringing on this side of the Atlantic, with fears of a two-speed Alliance, as the deficiencies in the European contribution were already being assessed. Since the Strategic Concept of 1991, NATO had recognised that the nature of conflict envisaged during the Cold War was now out of date, but it was only with great difficulty that the NATO Alliance could actually deploy the 1,2,3,range of forces and hardware that it required in 1999. As an ally in force over Kosovo, the NATO European partners were tested and found wanting, (although the nature of the conflict was very different from that which generations of deterrence strategists had envisaged). Within the NATO framework, the Washington Summit launched the Defence Capabilities Initiative (DCI). It proposed adaptations to conform to the New Strategic Concept.

On the back of the DCI, it was thus possible to repackage the Anglo-French initiative of St Malo in the context of capabilities. The Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTFs) promoted by NATO in 1996 had already laid the groundwork for greater competence in the context of the Petersberg Tasks.

EU member states are developing their capability (including headquarters) for Petersberg operations. The main areas to be addressed are deployability, sustainability, interoperability, flexibility and mobility. National command structures and existing command structures within the existing multinational forces (informally developed, and including, for example the Eurocorps) will be used. This exercise should be jointly and co-operatively carried forward, involving national commitment, NATO and PfP/ WEU associates, and the EU, while being 'mutually reinforcing' to NATO's own DCI. The intention is that NATO resources will be used as and when appropriate, although, at this stage, the exact formulation and composition of these changes is not made explicit. The need for more progress in European procurement and the harmonisation of military requirements had been flagged at St Malo and was re-iterated.

6. These changes are being made by the EU in the context of the development of non-military forms of security, including cooperation with NGOs, and was thus policy, rather than institution-based. A proposal to create a 5000 strong policing unit has now been approved.

Several points need to be emphasised here. First is that the Headline Goal is not a European Army. Decision makers have signally failed to find a good name - but Military Security Pool (MSP) is an accurate and satisfactory nomenclature, implying a pool of military resources which can be gathered together in the configurations required for non-territorial defence activities, from those countries - in or out of the EU, and from both sides of the Atlantic and presumably beyond - that wish to participate. Second - the system is inter-governmental in nature, and there is no proposal on the table that this should be changed. British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook has talked of the red line dividing Pillar Two and Pillar One type activities, a line which cannot be crossed. A third point has been emphasised over and over again: this is not devised to challenge NATO in terms of responsibilities (Article 5, or CJTFs), hardware (the US - NATO has very little dedicated hardware), or membership (US, Canada, Turkey, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary), but is rather an attempt to allow EU states to respond militarily to non-territorial defence based security challenges - as identified by the Petersberg Tasks. The North Atlantic Council meeting of 15 December 1999 referred to NATO's European Pillar, and the development of 'modalities for EU/NATO relations . . . .We note that this process will avoid unnecessary duplication and does not imply the creation of a European army'. Fourth, the policy question - how will we know when to use it?, or is security indivisible and global? - has been less well addressed than the institutional questions, and this relates both to the geographical area, and to the policy-making context (e.g. whether the issue is already a live one within CFSP).

The addition of a military dimension to the EU is much more than simply adding another policy area to its competence. A Rubicon in the development of the EU is being crossed, though these changes may yet have to be addressed in the context of another IGC and subsequent Treaty revisions.

The EU

There is a fragmentation of the Union's external profile which reflects historical developments, rather than a clear overall sense of what constitutes external, let alone security policy. Pillar III, Justice and Home Affairs, deals with matters relating to security within the EU, technically operating on a largely inter-governmental and informal basis. The external relations sphere in Pillar I of the EU deals inter alia with external trading and economic provisions, and is overseen by four Commissioners as joint key actors. Alongside this, the European Council of Heads of State and Government define by unanimity Pillar II activity (the CFSP) through joint actions and common positions, and, since Amsterdam, common strategies. The Foreign Affairs Council - composed of member states' foreign ministers - is responsible for securing the implementation of these common policies, and can further recommend new common strategies to the European Council. When the European Council unanimously approves a common strategy, then qualified majority voting by the Foreign Affairs Council can be used to implement it. So, procedurally, it is possible to proceed by a qualified majority vote, with measures approved by the European Council, with the dual safeguards of so-called constructive abstention, and the possibility of referring a decision back to the European Council if a state resorts to a veto on an action. The Commission is not excluded from the CFSP framework, and has a role through its international representative functions, its right to initiate policy suggestions, and through its participation in the implementation of actions. CFSP work is currently funded through the Community budget. So the notion of inter-governmentalism in Pillar II is only a partially accurate nomenclature: on the one hand, with European Council prior consent, qualified majority is then allowed, and, on the other, the Commission (which represents the interests of the EU, not its individual member states) is not excluded from the process altogether as a player. Clearly, the consent of the European Council preserves the rights of states not to be drawn into policy actions with which they might profoundly disagree. But at the same time, the Commission has a treaty obligation to ensure coherence across policies. This only partial inter-governmentalism remains an important point, and reflects a considerably greater status for the Commission in external relations than existed twenty years ago. We must consider whether inter-governmental axioms will be sustained, or whether militarising the EU will mean greater pressure to produce more policy coherence and a greater role for the Commission - a classic spill-over effect.

It will be difficult to draw lines in the sand between Commission activity, and state activity within Pillar Two. There are both policy and institutional reasons for this. First is the nature of what is meant by security, and how this fits in with the Petersberg Tasks, given that the EU is defining itself as a security, as well as an economic, organisation. Security is an elusive term, and scholars have long been trying to define and redefine it. Leaving to one side the studies which have critiqued the use of the word security based upon setting the term into non-military security, the state's domestic and external concerns, the individual, society, and identity, it is clear, even from the Petersberg definition, that security is not just about violence and the application of military instruments. It covers environmental, criminality and human rights issues, as well as those of the illegitimate use of violence. In terms of EU policy making, it is clear that many of the instruments that can be used to try and secure security are those which already belong to the Commission, including economic instruments, humanitarian aid, and sanctions (and enlargement).

It is also not possible to separate internal and external security. All that goes on relating to external policy has a double function. A unified external policy has to co-exist with the difficult task of establishing and sustaining the solidarity of the member states in the EU (as well as each state's own national domestic consensus) : thus there is always a double agenda - the projection of security, and the parallel consolidation of both the consent and the security of the participants as players within the system. To project security, the Union must itself be secure.

As explained, the Commission has a fairly robust role as an institution when we consider the EU's external policy overall, even discounting the extreme statements that have been made by Prodi. Since its conception, the Community has acquired greater competences. Whilst much of the early writing on 'spill-over' was discredited by events, particularly during the 1970s, the Commission received a boost to its capacity to act with the Single European Act. Now, within Pillar II the Commission has the right, but not the sole right, to propose initiatives, and to sit in at Council meetings on CFSP, and to ensure implementation. It is arguable that the EU, led by the Commission, may yet reduce what Chris Hill has called the 'capabilities-expectation' gap in the security sphere, without openly challenging the sacredness of the inter-governmental Council decision to use military force.

Significantly, Commissioner Chris Patten - Blair's choice as Commissioner - has also recently argued on these lines, pointing out that the EU has been reinforcing the non-military instruments of crisis management in areas from the building of democratic institutions, to promoting the rule of law and the good functioning of justice, police and border control, to control of illicit trafficking and arms control. He has 'an expansive view of the scope of the Commission to contribute ideas and proposals, whether or not it has the exclusive right of initiative, with the aim of ensuring a single and coherent EU position on the major international issues of the day', including those which might include Petersberg Tasks. He has set up a central planning staff for external relations under his authority (a Commission Crisis Centre) to ensure effective co-operation with Solana's policy planning and early warning unit, and an official from the Commission is seconded to Solana's unit to 'ensure good links'. To support a European operational capacity, he signals the Commission's potential to progress with a European armaments policy: 'we could look at ways of creating a single armament policy in the EU. This could require Community action on opening up defence procurement, competition rules, research programmes, import duties and export controls', within the context of more effective defence spending on upgraded armed forces. The Commission, 'with its own restructuring, has shown that it, too, is determined to step up a gear - or two, or three.' Non-military headline goals, to match the military ones are being developed, which would allow the EU to mobilise its own resources for EU, UN or OSCE actions in areas such as policing - 5000 are proposed, mine-clearance and mediation.

It is clear that the CESDP will not quickly become like any other Union policy arena - its Pillar II framework, the need for unanimity in the European Council guarantees, and the preferences of member states in this most state-like role of exercising military power guarantees that. But the responses required for security issues are often unclear and controversial, and the timing of these responses is even more difficult to gauge. The moment at which non-military forms of intervention may need to be supported, or supplanted by military forms is not easy to judge, (this is also true for a moment when 'security' becomes 'defence'). There can be no doubt that the fungibility of the boundaries between the Pillars will be increasingly challenged, as the indivisibility of external actions in the realm of security become more apparent. The Pillar system is not set in concrete.

Thus, the increasing participation of the Commission in the military-security dimension is institutionally logical to ensure as effective decision-making as possible. The Commission remains the only permanent bureaucracy to monitor and act across all external policy, whether in Pillar I or Pillar II. This is despite the current debate on flexibility. At the moment, this debate centres upon institutional structures that will allow those states which wish to do so to move forward more quickly in certain policy areas without the constraints of the EU 'laggards'. Whilst a variable geometry already exists, with, for example, the Contact Group of major powers outside the EU, flexibility in membership of EMU, participation in the Schengen agreements, and the possibility of 'constructive abstention' in Pillar Two, 'closer cooperation' arrangements could go much farther in the future. It is arguable that any developing doctrine of flexibility presents no real counter-argument to an incremental institutional increase in the Commission's day to day involvement, and the need for competence.

The EU and other security institutions in Europe

It has been argued that the EU 'is called on - and wants - to be the framework around which all of Europe reorganises itself for a peaceful and prosperous future', that it is 'the only game in town', for Europeans. What can we learn from the EU's relationship with other European international institutions? Is it a predator, despite the overlapping membership?

WEU

The decision that has been taken to wind down WEU may at first sight be considered one that has been a long time coming, and is long overdue. WEU, which was created in 1954 from the Brussels Treaty, and whose membership was only open to certain NATO members, had been the sole purely European defence organisation, and, although swamped by NATO since its foundation, has performed a number of useful tasks, and has a stronger defence guarantee than NATO itself. Since Maastricht, WEU has been a pivot between the EU and NATO, providing, in theory, services for the EU, while remaining a body to which only European NATO members could aspire to full membership. At Amsterdam, its survival was secured, although the possibility of an institutional change was also flagged. Nevertheless, it had until then been on a gradual downward path, never having been endowed with a clear role, its capacity to take on new members severely constrained, and losing functions to the Council of Europe in the 1960s. The failure of WEU to provide a structure of response to the crisis in ex-Yugoslavia has often been cited as the reason - at least for the British - for shutting it down, although, as a clearly intergovernmental organisation with no military assets it is not clear how else it could have been expected to respond.

The asset stripping, or cannibalising exercise that has gone on over the past eighteen months is curious. It is not clear what outcome is actually intended, nor what future its important and ambitious Article V will have. Until the Feira Council little attention was paid to the outreach work that WEU has done. Its Assembly will, in the longer term, probably be shut down, while the satellite centre and the Institute of Security Studies will be transferred into the EU. Amongst the most important of its legacies will be the Petersberg Tasks. It can be seen as representing much of what is still very uncertain about the direction of recent events: it had become the forum for the long-standing, and unresolved dialogue between France and Britain about relations between European states and NATO/ the US; while performing quiet security and confidence-building functions through its post-cold war associate partnership scheme; and acting as an institutional buffer between the EU and NATO in the defence/security 'shadow boxing' that has characterised much of the cold and post-cold war periods, not least during the Maastricht and Amsterdam negotiation periods. The prospect of the end of WEU as a functioning international institution means the direct institutional interface between the EU and NATO has now to be addressed. Until now, this has been protected by the civilian status of the EU, and the presence, however weak, of WEU as a shock absorber, whose value may only be appreciated when it disappears, if and when it does.

Council of Europe and OSCE

Neither can it be assumed that the future relationship of the EU with the Council of Europe will remain static. The current discussion on the Human Rights Convention and a new charter of human rights for the EU has, for the moment, been considered in the light of whether the EU can/ should accede as an institution to the Convention. However, the EU's Copenhagen Criteria for applicants, and the insertion of the Convention into the national legal regimes of most EU member states must in time give rise to speculation about the longer term future of the Council of Europe as a separate institution. The same cannot be said of the OSCE at this stage, although, in ex-Yugoslavia, its weaknesses have been made very apparent.

NATO

In the introduction, I argued that we might be witnessing the messy birth of a post-cold war pan European defence and security regime with organisations based around NATO and the EU, but at the moment, the relationship with NATO is complex and turbulent. Tensions have run high over the last eighteen months both in Brussels and in national capitals, and the overlap between the organisations, and that between leading states within the organisations is complex. The relationship between the two has had a substantial ingredient of competitiveness since the end of the cold war, despite declarations of cooperation, their mutual interests, and their similar value structures. The role specialisation of the cold war has disappeared: both now aspire to military security functions (CJTFs and MSP), and a collective/ cooperative security agenda; both are engaged in enlargement programmes. The St Malo declaration was, initially badly received by the six non-EU NATO members, with responses ranging from Madeleine Albright's broadside in the Financial Times, to Turkey's threats, and Canada's lament that it was the Seventh member of the Six non-EU NATO members. Public and private discussions have ranged beyond the Petersberg Tasks to the general direction of EU-NATO relations, US relations with European powers, procurement questions, and the general health of the Atlantic Alliance.

The pressures for administrative reform are far greater for the EU than they are for NATO, for the civilian culture and relative openness of EU decision-making contrast with NATO. Solana's appointment as Secretary-General of WEU as well as M. PESC has been intended to assist the change, and WEU officials have been closely involved with the EU, weaving a path between military representatives, with their own culture, and the EU and Pillar II officials. (It is not clear how well informed national ministries of defence are about the EU). Double hatting is widely practised on the new military committees, and there are complaints that the EU is importing the secrecy of decision-making associated with NATO, while there are also complaints that the culture of the EU, and its lack of administrative security, makes the sharing of confidential information hard. Decision-making in NATO itself will also have to change, if the interface between the two is to be effective. To date, the policy questions, and the relationship with national foreign policy making and the CFSP is still undeveloped, and the administrative reforms are taking place in something of a vacuum. Indeed, as Rupert Smith recently remarked, NATO will have to derive its actions from CFSP - as it, alone, has no 'strategy'.

At the level of capabilities and the parallel processes of the DCI and the creation of the MSP, problems also exist, not least because of the pressures that reforms have put upon national ministries of defence. However, the MSP has now been woven in as part of NATO restructuring, and the French flirtation with even greater European autonomy has, at least temporarily, been contained. There remains a very serious question about role specialisation between EU countries, and between NATO and the EU. This is why the satellite debate is so significant. A gendarmerie model for the EU is perhaps inevitable at least in the short run, with the more technical and expensive contribution coming from the US, although this is disputed. But this would mean that peacemaking, as opposed to policing, civilian control and humanitarian rescue type operations, would reside with NATO/ CJTFs.

Enlargement has exposed graphically the uneasy sharing of terrain of the EU and NATO. As the cold war ended, it seemed as if the EC's day had come, and that NATO would weaken, if not wither. Both institutions set up association schemes - Associate Membership and NACC (now EAPC) and PfP. Given its less dense institutional structure and its stronger leadership structure, NATO enlarged first, reflecting the historical pattern of other, non-neutral enlargements. The mess that remains may convey security through the expectation of membership of one organisation or the other, or both, however, it is extremely unlikely that enlargement will not remain on the European agenda for a very long time, and will play into the security debate in ways that range from decision-making, through being possible recipients of intervention under Petersberg Task security.

Euro-Atlantic relations

This inter-institutional debate has been conducted in parallel with one about Euro-Atlantic relations, and particularly the role of the US in sustaining and promoting security both in Europe (in its widest sense, and beyond). We can identify two contradictory trends. The first - transatlantic drift - is essentially based upon the premise that the international structural underpinning of the cold war will, over time, be eroded, in part by this initiative. Instead of a more mature relationship between the US and its European partners, as envisaged by George Kennan who said Americans should now 'try to cut ourselves down to size in the dreams and aspirations we direct to our possibilities for world leadership', the Europeans will instead see the parallel work done to re-invent NATO as institutional floundering. The US will therefore slip into indifference to European security issues, and concentrate its energies upon its autonomous role, and, indeed, to NMD. This view is reflected in the current preoccupation with a shifting attitude in the US towards international institutions generally, perhaps a sense that the US is too big for positive membership of international institutions, fears military overstretch, and is driven by the constraints of domestic and particularly US Congress politics. Transatlantic drift raises the question of whether NATO can only work when there is strong American leadership.

A second perspective is that of increased transatlantic participation: that institutional change may give the US an even stronger presence in Europe, leading perhaps to some kind of convergence between EU and NATO membership - a Transatlantic defence and security community. NATO parliamentarians have been invited to sit in on EP sessions and certain European players are even toying with the idea of offering a seat to NATO at some of the EU Council meetings concerned with the new security policy. Second, in policy terms, it is almost impossible to think of a Petersberg type task over which the US would not wish to keep a droit de regard, especially if US equipment was being lent or leased for such a task. He who pays the piper, calls the tune. Third is anticipation that US economic interests, and in particular those in the armaments sphere, will dominate any exclusively European armaments provision, and thereby flood the market with American products, with an inevitable extension of their leverage. This scenario is both favoured and feared in Europe. Such fear has underpinned much of French thinking on this subject since 1998. Some French analysts have seen the US as becoming a 'hyperpuissance', and of exercising unrestrained power across the international system. However, whether individual states still fear each other more than the US remains to be seen.

So, from a European perspective, the working relationship with the US remains redolent with practical and political landmines. One senior interviewee said that, in Washington, half the administration feels that the MSP will destroy NATO: the other half that, without MSP, NATO will die. Thus, the argument goes, the Europeans have to convince the US government that they will not gather uncontrollable momentum and rudely burst the seams of the post-cold war institutional consensus; but that neither will the project fizzle out amidst mutual retributions, second thoughts or panic attacks. Europeans have to show that they will not fail, nor will they do too much; that they are serious Europeans, not seriously anti-American; and that there is a coherence between declining defence budgets and vigorous rhetoric and planning.

The risks of failure

However, the St Malo project could yet collapse. Whilst it is not safe to draw direct historical parallels, decision-makers could do worse than remember the failure of the European Defence Community, discussions for which had continued for four years (1950-1954), with a Treaty that was signed by the Six in 1952, and ratified by four of the Six before the French decided against ratification in August 1954, although the context was rather different then. The Fouchet Plans, proposed between 1959 and 1962, were likewise scotched over institutional disagreements. The Genscher-Colombo plan failed. The Werner Report on EMU became a dead letter.

As with all integrative enterprises, political will is the key. 'St Malo' may become impossible to operationalise if states are now unable or unwilling to support words with deeds - or capabilities. The 'bargain' struck at St Malo has many weaknesses, and is in no sense rock solid. State support, as well as institutional vigour remains essential. It is unlikely that more cuts in national defence spending would be possible while the MSP pledges were being agreed, yet existing budgets are under pressure, not least because of the constraints that the EMU criteria impose upon those within EMU. Indeed, it is not clear the extent to which European states want, or need, to change the actual status quo. There are currently about 28,000 EU troops in KFOR, and another 12,000 in SFOR, which makes for a sizeable EU contribution to Petersberg type peacekeeping tasks that is already in the field.

The St Malo project could be prone to hijack by those countries which are in both EU and NATO but which disapprove of any decision to use force, or who wish to use agreement as a bargaining chip for other policy outcomes that they seek. Consent by non-EU NATO members might take time, and not be easily achieved. The backing of the US has been muted thus far, and will always have to be worked at, not least because the option of withdrawal of US intelligence support facilities could impede the active promulgation of certain types of Petersberg activities. Given the voluntaristic rather than automatic nature of the Petersberg tasks and the difficulties associated with identifying and prioritising these tasks, securing consensus from the key players in the EU and/or NATO cannot always be assumed. The complications for decision-making in the EU have been highlighted above - and it would be deeply ironic if the EU were to discover that it has closed down the over-complex WEU only to mimic its complexities within the EU.

Yet it remains clear that, even if the 2003 deadline is not met, or that the MSP is never operationalised, the scope of the EU as a security actor has been changed, and that its relations, and those of key EU/ NATO member states will not be the same again.