This monograph examines the legal dimension of European defence integration from the Second World War to the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe. It covers the evolution of European defence and security law in its legal,historical, and political context. The notion of defence law describes the entire field of rules created to regulate the defence of a nation or alliance. The analysis leads from the earliest mutual defence treaties to the failure of the European Defence Community and the eventual separation of defence from the mainstream of European integration in the 1950s, further to the re-vitalisation of a European security policy in the Treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, and Nice. In the context of this evolutionary process, the book examines the function of Community Law as an instrument of European defence integration. Community law affects the economic and social aspects of the defence within the limits of the security exemptions of the EC Treaty. It has an impact on the composition of the armed forces, the procurement of armaments, or the regulation of the defence industries. The book concludes with an analysis of the Common Security and Defence Policy of the Constitutional Treaty agreed by the European Council in 2004. The discussion shows that European defence integration is characterised by fragmentation in an area where coherence is particularly important. First, defence and security are addressed in several organisations: the EU, the Western European Union, NATO, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Organisation for Joint Armaments Cooperation. Second, defence and security are addressed in both the supranational Community Pillar and the intergovernmental Second Pillar of the Treaty on European Union. The new Constitutional Treaty aims to overcome the three-Pillar structure of the Union. Nevertheless, it leaves the intergovernmental character of the security and defence policy intact and introduces flexible frameworks for its mutual defence, crisis management, and armaments components. However, the Union needs a coherent defence policy to ensure her security and to speak with one voice on the international scene.

The emergence of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) in the last two-thirds of the 1990s and continuing into the new century, has been a complex process intertwining politics, economics, national cultures, and numerous institutions. This book provides an essential background for understanding how security issues as between NATO and the European Union are being posed for the early part of the 21st century, including the new circumstances following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. This study should be of interest to those interested in the evolution of U.S.-European relations, especially in, but not limited to, the security field; the development of institutional relationships; and key choices that lie ahead in regard to these critical arrangements.

Given the Ukraine crisis, Russia’s resurgence and the burning crises in the South there has never been a better time to discuss European defence. From November 2014 to March 2015, the online magazine European Geostrategy published a number of excellent essays on the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), all from a national perspective. You can now read all of the essays in this one neat publication. Indeed, in this essay collection jointly published by European Geostrategy, the Egmont Institute and the Institute for European Studies, a host of leading experts give their national perspectives on the present state and future of the EU’s CSDP. Each of the thirty-four essays focuses on the continued relevance of the CSDP when compared to the security challenges facing Europe today. Some essays give a bleak picture of the future, whereas others see grounds for optimism. Either way the essays are bound to provoke reactions of all kinds.

Challenges established assumptions about how EU member states behave, what supranational institutions want, and where the dividing line between high and low politics is located. Develops and new theoretical framework and draws conclusions about the state of political disequilibrium in which the EU operates.

The emergence of a common security and foreign policy has been one of the most contentious issues accompanying the integration of the European Union. In this book, Michael Smith examines the specific ways foreign policy cooperation has been institutionalized in the EU, the way institutional development affects cooperative outcomes in foreign policy, and how those outcomes lead to new institutional reforms. Smith explains the evolution and performance of the institutional procedures of the EU using a unique analytical framework, supported by extensive empirical evidence drawn from interviews, case studies, official documents and secondary sources. His perceptive and well-informed analysis covers the entire history of EU foreign policy cooperation, from its origins in the late 1960s up to the start of the 2003 constitutional convention. Demonstrating the importance and extent of EU foreign/security policy, the book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and policy-makers.

Against a backcloth of tumultuous events in Europe, the EU faces once again the fateful question of moving towards federal union or let flexible integration guide the Union. The sixth volume in Interdisciplinary European Studies explores the coexistence of deepening political integration and flexible patterns of integration in the EU. The book brings together scholars from economics, law, and political science to provide insights into issues with a bearing on the future of the EU: the crisis of rule of law and political values, the move towards a European defence union, the power of the new European public prosecutor’s office, the prospects of financial stability through the Recovery and Resilience facility, and the state of European parliamentary democracy. The chapters are based on up-to-date research findings and succinct assessments of the current state of affairs and ongoing debates. They conclude with policy recommendations for decision-makers on European and national levels.