Customary of smashing statements that might not necessarily be supported by the facts, President Donald Trump placed two at once at the Alliance summit in December 2019, during a press conference: “Nobody needs NATO more than France (...) frankly, the one that benefits the least is the United States.” Two utter nonsense that deserve to be looked at more closely.

The European avant-garde has a sense and a legitimacy only if it is inspired by a strategic vision, aiming to the reinforcement of all the aspects of European sovereignty. Only such a project will be able to contribute to the safeguarding of a "certain idea of Europe": that of a fully-fledged geopolitical actor able to guarantee our security, to promote our values and our interests and to defend our economic, social, environmental and cultural model.

The process of European integration is, without any doubt, the most significant political innovation of the last half-century. Born out of the feeling of necessity, it has been guided by the hope that the construction of a community between European countries may eventually pave the way for the organization of tomorrow’s world. However, our subject here is not to dwell on how brilliant, necessary and promising the project is. In fact, the credibility and legitimacy of the European process today are weakened both inside and outside, in particular by the gulf between rhetoric and reality.

Euro-American relations are periodically tarnished by so-called "misunderstandings", verbal skirmishes, diplomatic incidents and other manifestations of mutual distrust that seem to rise out of nowhere, literally from one day to the next. Their perception is actually dramatized by the fact that they emerge from under the cover of what is presented as an impeccable relationship, based on a much-touted community of values and interests. This contradiction increases the risk of visceral reactions on both sides of the Atlantic: anti-Americanism in Europe and Europe-bashing in the United States.

The present study begins by examining the concept of "strategic culture", before attempting to take stock of the numerous dividing lines between the EU’s Member States in this field. To conclude, it focuses on the forces which allow or prevent from overcoming these divergences. By underlining all along that the real question does not relate to the feasibility of a possible synthesis, but rather to its substance. In other words, the question is to know whether a common European security culture could ever have any meaningful strategic dimension. 

The concept of strategic, political, operational and industrial-technological autonomy lies at the heart of the connection linking together the substantial-existential and practical-implementational aspects of ESDP.

The paper starts by defining the main criteria of what can be called the European Security Model, and then examines the role qnd pertinence of this latter in the fight against terrorism.

A three-level dividing line is to be found at the root of the European foreign, security and defence policy’s deep contradictions. Member States range on one or the other side based upon their position regarding the content of integration, the transatlantic relations and the desirable shape of future international order (including Europe’s place and role within it).

The necessity for the European Union (EU) to play a more assertive role in the Balkans is on the agenda now more than ever. In fact, after the events of 11 September 2001, the withdrawal of the bulk of the US troops from the region and their replacement by European contingents is, for the first time, considered as a politically feasible (and militarily sensible) option. At the same time, the EU’s evolving defense policy has been declared “operational” at the Laeken summit in December 2001,[1] with all the related institutions in place and with the Western European Union’s (WEU) crisis management capabilities and functions transferred to the EU. The EU is therefore theoretically the actor that is most competent to play a military role (in addition to other, more traditional aspects of EU crisis management) in the neighboring Balkan region.

Specificities of the EU’s situation and reaction Responses by sphere of activity Justice and Home Affairs Diplomacy and common foreign, security and defence policy Humanitarian assistance Air traffic safety Economic and financial measures Civil protection Long-term tendencies Collective defence Institutional flexibility Inter-pillars fusion Widening and deepening Mediterranean dimension Sustainable globalisation