Sfera Politicii (Apr 2014)
The United Kingdom and the establishment of European Security and Defence Policy
Abstract
After the Labour Party came to power, Great Britain was actively implied in the negotiations and the decision-making processes that led to the construction of the European security and defence mechanism. The European Union’s new perspective regarding security and defence assumed after 1999 was mostly framed by British leaders who seized the inability of Europe to react during the Kosovo War. Although, at the beginning the United Kingdom reformed its internal mechanisms and assumed complex duties, the creation of European Security and Defence Policy did not abolish the North Atlantic security system, as Germans and French would have wanted. Beyond the United States mistrust, transatlantic cooperation continued, especially because of the UK which sought to strike the right balance between European theatre and the North-Atlantic one.
