European Security after Maastricht

Abstract

In his last main speech to the Storting on 25 October 1993, Johan Jørgen Holst stated the urgent need to see that ‘Europe assume a greater share of the burdens and responsibility and a more clearly defined European Defence Identity emerge’. ‘This’, he continued, ‘involves a strengthening of the Western European Union (WEU), which has been conceived as a defence component of the EC’. In fact, after the first difficult period of implementation of the Maastricht Treaty, two critical dates will determine the future shape of the security and defence policy of the EU: 1996, when the Revision Conference of the Treaty is scheduled, and 1998, when the WEU Treaty expires. The latter will be significant only if the WEU has not already become an ‘integral part of the European Union’ by 1996: that is, if the WEU continues to be parallel to (meaning institutionally separate from) the EU. This would be a scenario which would not fully respect the original spirit of Maastricht, as stated in Article J4.2 of the Treaty.