The turbulences in the European and transatlantic skies over the course of the past year obviously have not been without impact on the coexistence between the Atlantic Alliance and the European Union's (EU) Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). Long-time taboos have been lifted, initiatives are multiplying, new perspectives seem to open up, and immediately generate powerful backlashes. The outcome will depend largely, once again, on the choices made, and determination displayed, by France.

The concurrence between Brexit (expected to revitalize a European defence on which London has always imposed strict limits) and the election of D. Trump in the United States (shedding light on the risks and uncertainties stemming from a situation of dependency) seems to have an almost seismic effect on the architecture of European and transatlantic security.

NATO "obsolete", the Brexit "a success"? The bluntly expressed views of the U.S. president-elect[1] are the best thing that has happened to France’s European policy[2] over the past quarter of a century.

According to the German weekly Der Spiegel, the issue of a European alternative to the (presumed) U.S. nuclear umbrella has been, for monthes, the object of informal, off-the-record dicussions within NATO.

The current paper on the European Union's security and defence policy examines the issue of 1. Developments in year 2005; 2. Public opinion and democratic control; 3. Defence industry and technologies; 4. Civilian aspects of crisis management; 5. Cooperation with the United Nations. 

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. 

EU-NATO relations are merely a symptom. They are the reflection of the power struggle between the two sides of the Atlantic on the one hand, and of intra-European schizophrenia on the other. At the heart of this complex arm-wrestling there is one single crucial issue at stake: European autonomy. As regards the choice allegedly to be made between EU-NATO co-operation or competition, this is a false dilemma. In the current balance of power situation, both are inevitable.

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 area of security and defence policy is the one registering the most noticeable positive shifts within the new EU Treaty (referred to as the constitution). These novelties - along with all finally adopted arrangements - are crucial regardless of the "constitution's" immediate fate: they demonstrate the delicate equilibrium between the minimum requirement for effective functioning and the maximum degree of political willingness at the level of the Twenty-Five.

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).