BELGIUM 12 Jul 2009 European Defence Agency five years old 

The European Defence Agency came into being on 12 Jul 2004. The alliance it supports, the European Union's European Security and Defence Policy, was established five years earlier. Questions about whether both the ESDP and NATO are necessary could increase in this anniversary year, a time of economic crisis and military overstretch - particularly now France, a founding ESDP member, has rejoined the Alliance.

European leaders, including France, are still talking up the ESDP and EDA, but critics point to the want of strategic thinking about what defense and security role the European Union should have.

When Western leaders began asking if, with NATO at hand, the Western European Union was really necessary, NATO won. As NATO has grown, the WEU, the European defence and security organization established by the Brussels Treaty of 1948 and composed of those states that were members of both NATO and treaty signatories, has dwindled in importance to almost nothing.

The idea of a military force run by the European Union languished until 1998-1999, when former prime minister Tony Blair and then-French president Jacques Chirac led the move to establish a European-led force. Vocal EU hostility to the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 gave the ESDP a boost. In April 2003, the EU opponents of the Iraq war called for a separate EU military command, moving the EDA project forward.

A report focusing on the European Security Strategy by Karl von Wogau, a centre-right German MEP (EPP-ED) complained in February about the “relative lack of progress since 2003 in strengthening EU co-operation in defence.” He noted that the revision of the European Security Strategy has resulted "not in a new strategic orientation, but merely in a report expressing day-to-day policy concerns as they arise.”

The ESDP decision-making body is composed of Defence Ministers of the 26 participating Member States (all EU members, except Denmark) and the European Commission.

RELATED READING:

European Defence Agency
http://www.eda.europa.eu/

France seeks to revitalise European defence (EurActiv 6 Jun 2008)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/opinion/france-seeks-revitalise-european-defence/article-173103

French defense hopes lie in rejoining NATO (IHT 18 Feb 2009)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/18/europe/letter.php?page=2

EU's military policy criticized (European Voice 18 Feb 2009)
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2009/02/eu's-military-policy-criticised/64006.aspx

Eurocopter looks across Atlantic for European heavylift helicopter (Flight Global 23 Jan 2009)
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/01/23/321535/eurocopter-looks-across-atlantic-for-european-heavylift.html

Angela Merkel advocates a new strategy for NATO (German Fed. Govt 16 Feb 2009)
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/23552