The European Security Strategy, which was adopted in December 2003 by the European Council, serves three functions. Firstly, it provides a frame of reference both for long-term strategies and for current political problems. Secondly, it is a basis for consultation with major partners on central strategic issues. Thirdly, it leads to concrete follow-up in five areas identified by the European Council: (1) proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, (2) the fight against terrorism, (3) effective multilateralism with the UN at its core, (4) a strategy towards the region of the Middle East, and (5) a comprehensive policy towards Bosnia-Herzegovina. Where...

Of all the clichés surrounding debates on the European Security Strategy, the most common may be that even if the EU is still an uncertain actor, it is already an attractive model. Robert Kagan might argue that Europeans have become so engrossed in their mutual affairs that they fail to understand the world beyond their borders. They can respond that their need to look outwards is reduced by the fact that the world is looking in, and enviously: ‘Elsewhere, what in Europe has become a reality is in many other parts of the world an aspiration. ASEAN, NAFTA and MERCOSUR...

Europe is at a crossroads. Among the clouds of abstention, apathy and doubts about the European integration project displayed by the last European election, the new Commission has to restore the credibility and the efficiency of an institution whose legitimacy is contested by the European public and, more crucially, by some Member States. Moreover, the precarious ratification process of the Constitution will yet again launch the Union in an introspective exercise, which by nature would favour the critics more than the converts. The series of referenda would ultimately be decided by national electoral geography rather than by a truly European...

The best way of summarizing the European Security Strategy, the ‘European way’, is ‘effective multilateralism’, the last of three strategic objectives named in the Strategy. Effective Multilateralism – ‘the development of a stronger international society, well functioning international institutions and a rule-based international order’ as the Strategy has it – concerns the global level, the world system itself, and as such addresses the long-term, underlying factors determining peace and security, and that by multilateral means, by cooperating with others.

The other two strategic objectives in the Strategy are implied by Effective Multilateralism. ‘Building security in our neighbourhood’ is the application...

At the December 2003 Brussels summit the EU adopted the European Security Strategy. The document has three basic parts. First, it calls for the EU to contribute more resources to establishing economic and political stability in its neighbourhood. Second, it calls on the EU to build an international order. And third, it calls on the EU to strengthen its civil and military capacity to deal with the threat of weapons of mass destruction and rogue states. The Strategy has a global and comprehensive approach to Europe’s security interests and threats.

Due to the vagueness of the Strategy – 25 governments...