CIAO DATE: 05/04

From Laeken to Copenhagen European defence: core documents

Abstract

For EDSP, 2002 was a year of paradoxes: following the 11 September attacks, during the work of the Convention and before enlargement, European Security and Defense policy was subject to contradictory pressures and the reappearance of divergences between member states, all of this in a climate of extremely tense transatlantic relations that in general paralysed any European initiative. And then in the first weeks of Decemeber, on the eve of the European Council in Copenhagen, most of the obstacles in the way of implementation of EDSP, concerning relations between the union and NATO, the position of Turkey vis-a-vis Europe and the prospect of real EU operations in the Balkans, notably macedonia and Bosnia, were to disappear.

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