Europe's defence and strategic autonomy: harmonising NATO and EU capability responses
Committee 1
At the end of the Second World War, when Europe had just experienced six years of major conflict, a new kind of opposition emerged, resulting from the confrontation of two blocs. With the advent of the Cold War came the need and desire to promote collective security and defence for Europe.
Initially, this desire manifested itself in the creation of the Western European Union, which included a collective defence component, when the Treaty of Brussels was signed on 17 March 1948. However, the failure of the European Defence Community when the French National Assembly rejected the treaty in 1954 put a temporary end to European defence ambitions.
It was therefore with the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), a politico-military organisation which came into being on 4 April 1949, but did not acquire permanent structures until after the Korean War, that the first collective defence was really put in place.
At the end of the Cold War, the wars in Yugoslavia confirmed the foundations of the Alliance and motivated the European Union (EU), a political and economic partnership, to extend its competences to security and defence issues through the Maastricht Treaty, signed in 1992. In June 1996, the Atlantic Alliance laid the foundations for the establishment of a "European pillar". This reference to a pillar inevitably raises the question of the resources (or "building blocks") common to the two organisations, and hence the possibility of harmonising the construction of capabilities.
