Creating of military defense structure in European Union: Obstacles and potentials

Abstract

European security and defence policy represents a main part of European Union’s structure and is institutionally connected to common foreign and security policy. However, because of great significance of defence policy for national security of member countries, long-term domination of NATO, and USA showing interest in security issues in Europe, the development of this field had somewhat different dynamic, in compartment to other fields. There were several unsuccessful attempts in the field of forming common Euro­pean defence: Fouchet plan - European Defence Community; Gensher-Colombo plan - extension of European political cooperation to defence and security issues. Concrete success was achieved at the conference in Brussels in 1948, which resulted in Brussels agreement - a military union was formed -Western European Union. An event, which is later going to prove itself as a very significant one, helped development of military-defence dimension of European Union. It is the signing of St. Petersburg declaration in 1992, for the purpose of accomplishing next tasks: humanitarian and rescuing operations; peacekeeping operations; militant operations of crisis management, including infliction of peace.

Rukovođena različitim motivima, u delikatnim vremenskim i prostornim okvirima, evropska integracija je obuhvatala sve veći broj oblasti, koje su u viševekovnoj tradiciji predstavljale ekskluzivne nadležnosti država. Evropa je kolevka koncepta državnog suvereniteta, koji su evropske države -nacije izdigle na nivo osnovnog organizujućeg principa međunarodnog poretka. Dok je taj "stisak" državnog suvereniteta popuštao u drugim oblastima, pitanje bezbednosti i odbrane se oduvek tumačilo kao pitanje opstanka. Ispostavilo se da je odbrambeno-vojna dimenzija evropske integracije najosetljivija, na putu od rata do ustava, koji je prošla Evropa u poslednjih pola veka. Ipak, bez ove dimenzije, Evropska unija ne može izraziti svoju moć na globalnom nivou, bez obzira na sve ostale parametre koji ukazuju na njene ostale oblike moći.