TFF Press Info #108

THE MILITARISATION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION: HUMPTY-DUMPTY AS PEACE-MAKER

By Jan Oberg, TFF director

This PressInfo deals with

1) Some reflections on conflict management in the 1990s.

2) The EU crisis management organisation.

3) The civilian dimension which is clearly underdeveloped.

4) Why is there no co-ordination with the OSCE and the UN?

5) Future EU's dependence on the United States and NATO.

6) Formal membership is irrelevant and so are the words "European Army"

EU-NATO co-operation was pushed through in Nice, with no similar function vis-a-vis the OSCE and the UN. Indeed, if the EU's endeavour were mainly civilian, it would be natural to discuss its fundamental relation to and co-operation with the OSCE, the existing civilian European security organisation.

"Judging from EU documents and plans, the EU does not want to draw any self-critical conclusions from the conflict-management in the 1990s. Some reasons seem to be that they are incompatible with traditional concepts of power (power is power over someone else, not over ourselves), they do not have "sex appeal" for careerists, they won't make the EU a new world super power or satisfy the military-industrial complex. They are also quite incompatible with male thinking in general and male elite thinking in particular..."

Go straight to PressInfo 108 http://www.transnational.org/pressinf/2000/pf108_EUHumpty-Peace.html © TFF 2000