European Security and Defence Identity
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The European Security and Defence Identity is a term which was used to describe a European common defence and security policy in the 1990s, now effectively replaced by the European Security and Defence Policy.
Europe's first step towards a common foreign and security policy was contained in the Maastricht Treaty as the Common Foreign and Security Policy, under which signatories agreed..
- "..to implement a common foreign and security policy including the progressive framing of a common defence policy, which might lead to a common defence..., thereby reinforcing the European identity and its independence in order to promote peace, security and progress in Europe and in the world"
At the 1996 NATO Summit in Berlin it was agreed that the ESDI would be carried out by the Western European Union (WEU) but structured within NATO and use NATO headquarters and assets, preventing duplication. Thus the ESDI became a "separable but not separate" part of NATO as promoted by the United States.
At the Anglo-French summit at Saint Malo in 1998 British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac shifted the focus of common defence and security away from the WEU to within the European Union. 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".
At the 1999 Washington NATO summit it was agreed that the European Union itself would carry out "crisis management operations" using NATO assets and capabilities on a case-by-case basis as envisaged in 1996. In Helsinki in December 1999 European leaders agreed to strengthen European defence capabilities and establish the European Rapid Reaction Force.
