The Quest for Relevant Air Power

POST–COLD WAR CHALLENGES │ 17
signed in Maastricht, the Netherlands, in February 1992, the development
of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
was agreed upon. At the time, the prospect of a future common
defence was held out and an explicit link to the Western European
Union (WEU) as an integral part of EU security and defence
matters was established. 18
Almost concurrently with these developments, WEU member
states declared the necessity for a genuine European security and
defence identity. 19 For this purpose, the WEU adopted in June 1992
the Petersberg Tasks Declaration, encompassing humanitarian
and rescue tasks, peacekeeping, and peace enforcement. Moreover,
WEU member states declared their intention to make available
military units for the accomplishment of these tasks in the
context of WEU, NATO, or EU operations. 20
With the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty in June 1997, the
European Council incorporated the WEU Petersberg Tasks into
the EU’s CFSP. 21 Despite the declaration of broad political intentions,
however, no firm and concrete action plan for common defence
matters was decided upon. Moreover, Europe’s difficulties in
dealing with the crisis in the Balkans during the 1990s seriously
put into question the effectiveness of the CFSP. It was essential to
improve European military capabilities if the EU wanted to take
on strategic responsibilities. This realisation led Great Britain and
France—the two critical European military actors—to reconcile
opposing views. For France, a more effective use of military force
meant a more pragmatic approach towards NATO. Great Britain,
for its part, was apprehensive that Europe’s military powerlessness
might imperil the very foundation of the Atlantic partnership.
The rapprochement between France and Great Britain led to the
bilateral Franco-British St. Malo Declaration in late 1998. 22 France
and the UK jointly declared that the CFSP had to be backed by
credible military forces, decision-making bodies, and sources of
intelligence and analysis. 23
In the ensuing years, a rapid Europeanisation of the St. Malo
Declaration took place. The institutional changes for an effective
European security and defence policy as an integral part of the
EU’s CFSP—decided at the summit in Cologne, Germany, elaborated
on in Helsinki, Finland, and finalised at Santa Maria de
Feira, Portugal—were agreed upon by the member states at the