Abstract
With the treaty of Maastricht's coming into force in 1993, the European Community became the European Union and the Common Foreign and Security Policy became one of the three pillars of this new Union. This step of the European construction was very important because it signified the will of the member states of the European Union to start a real political integration and therefore to unify their foreign policies. It is the international context that accelerated the process of creation of a common European defence policy within the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Firstly, at the end of the Cold War, Europe stopped being a strategic priority for the United States and since then there has been a decrease in the importance given by Washington to the security of Europe. Secondly, during the 1990s the European states did not manage to coordinate to solve the various conflicts within their own continent (Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo) and in each case NATO has had to intervene under the command of the US. Thirdly, the European Union had the will to become a stronger and more visible actor on the international stage. However, the two major military powers of Europe, the UK and France, had two opposing positions regarding European Security: where the UK feared that a common defense policy would cause the US to revert to isolationism, France believed that the existence of a common European Security and Defence Policy would lead the US to appreciate Europe as a serious ally. But considering the international context, the head of state of France and the head of government of the UK decided to launch the European Security and Defence Policy with the joint-declaration of Saint-Malo on December 1998.
