The Actors in Europe's Foreign Policy by Hill Christopher

Author:Hill, Christopher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published: 2011-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

THE SECURITY EQUATION

In 1976, the Tindemans Report on European Union asked that ‘security should not be left outside the scope of the European Union’.10 Having become Minister of Foreign Affairs, after having been Prime Minister from 1974 to 1978, the author of the Report noted that this request had been ignored. Both the London Report on European Political Cooperation of October 1981 and the Stuttgart Solemn Declaration on European Union of June 1983 limited themselves to allowing EPC to deal with the ‘political aspects of security’.11 As it was obvious that no progress could be made in this field, Leo Tindemans proposed in an article published in Le Monde on 23 December 1983 that cooperation in and coordination of defence policies which related to the dimension of European security, should be undertaken with the framework of the Western European Union. The article by the Belgian Minister was published just before the Franco-German proposal of February 1984 was tabled with a view to relaunching the WEU which culminated in the Rome Declaration of 27 October 1984. It is not clear whether Belgium was influencing or reflecting the positions of its larger neighbours on the question.

The support given to the idea of relaunching the WEU constituted a Uturn for Belgian European policy. For the first time Brussels had supported an initiative which would take place outside the framework of the Ten. In his article published in Le Monde Leo Tindemans wrote that it introduced ‘a notion of a differentiated Europe in the security domain similar to that which the EMS established in the monetary domain’. According to Cahen, Brussels made this choice with ‘resignation’. However it was obvious that several member states—Greece, Denmark, Ireland—were not inclined to extend the scope of Political Cooperation to the military aspects of security. ‘In choosing between a standstill and a solution which was not satisfactory but had the merit of providing—even if in a more narrow framework— necessary European consultations on security problems, the advocates of a relaunch of the WEU chose the second path.’12 However the Belgian government did not give up on the idea of ‘one day restoring European security problems to their appropriate framework: at the level of the Ten and later of the Twelve’.13

The prospect of a Soviet-American agreement on Euromissiles in 1987 encouraged, moreover, Prime Minister Martens to propose that the Twelve should debate this strategic question. After Gorbachev had announced the reversal of the Soviet position on the zero option with respect to the dismantling of Euromissiles, Commission President Jacques Delors appealed on 15 March for an extraordinary meeting of the European Council so as to reach a common position and to lay down the foundations of a common security policy.14

Holding the office of President of the European Council, Wilfred Martens, no less than President Mitterrand, had reacted positively to M Delors’ proposal. The Belgian Prime Minister declared that he would tackle the problem of a strengthening of the ties between the Twelve in respect of defence at the time of a meeting on 19 March with the French President.

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