The initiative of the Four and European Defence

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On April 29th of this year, a group of European countries – Belgium, France, Germany and Luxemburg – gathered in Brussels to purpose some initiatives aiming at the enhancement of the European security tooling. Surfing on the reinforced cooperation principle and sustaining a better reactivity of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), this initiative has had to suffer pressures coming from the United-States, Great-Britain and the so-called non-aligned European countries. They considered that this intra-European process was a duplication of means (distinct European headquarters) and another element of tension in the transatlantic field, at a time where the Iraqi crisis was enlarging deepening divergences. Nevertheless, the new British posture shall tend to include the Four’s proposals to maximize, in useful times, both London’s leading position in the European cadre and the preponderance of the transatlantic base. – Summary AFRI-2004