European Security and Defense Policy: Uncertain developments throughout the 1990s

Abstract

The European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) of the European Union (EU) was implemented in 1999 and has been one major step towards a common European defense identity. The policy emerged out of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) (1992) and the St-Malo declaration (1998). The latter was an agreement between France and the United Kingdom (UK) in favor of stronger European defense capabilities. Literature shows two conspicuous attributes in the formation of the policy: the switch of the UK from opposing the policy to approving it in the St-Malo declaration and the quick implementation of the ESDP. Drawing on agenda-setting theory in the EU and a political and historical interdisciplinary research, this paper demonstrates that the UK’s approval to the policy was not a consequence of EU’s agenda-setting procedure, and that the quick implementation can be drawn back to the exclusion of alternative actors. The paper will first present the agenda-setting framework of the EU, before analyzing the historical development.