Great Britain — From Opposing the Union towards a Subordinated ESDP

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the overall question of to what extent the British government preferred the EU to be responsible for different aspects of military planning. The United Kingdom represents a great challenge in this context since there was a tremendous shift between the mid-1990s and the Convention. While France and to some degree Germany maintained their traditional positions, it was the UK’s subscription to the ESDP that made the declaration of St Malo in 1998 such a ‘sea change’ (Whitman 1999: 5–9; Heisbourg 2000a: 8–9; Posen 2006: 167–8). Its underlying aim was to increase Europe’s military capability for different forms of crisis management.