Common Security and Defence Policy: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:04, 13 October 2005

Revision as of 07:01, 19 October 2005

Line 1:

The '''European Security and Defence Policy''' or '''ESDP''' is considered a major element of the [[Common Foreign and Security Policy]] [[three pillars of the European Union|pillar]] of the [[European Union]] (EU). The ESDP was initiated by provisions of the [[Amsterdam Treaty]] which stipulated the progressive framing of a common security and defence policy that could deal with humanitarian and rescue, [[peacekeeping]], peacemaking and combat forces [[crisis management]] tasks, called the Petersberg tasks.

The momentum for the ESDP was given by a bilateral declaration of [[President of France|French President]] [[Jacques Chirac]] and the [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|British Prime Minister]] [[Tony Blair]] in [[Saint-Malo|St. Malô]], where they stated that "the Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises".

In June [[1999]], the [[Cologne European Council]] appointed [[Javier Solana]] as the ''High Representative of the CFSP'' to help progress both the CFSP and the ESDP.