https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4155-9973
![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
European strategic autonomy has become a common motto since the EU’s Global Security Strategy (2016). France and Germany have for several years been playing a leading role in promoting the concept even though they share quite different views on what such autonomy should aim for, especially in a context of multipolarity and power re-configurations. This article analyzes the role of French-German input in European strategic autonomy relying on two criteria: input legitimacy (procedures) and output legitimacy (efficiency). Based on three concrete examples (the MPCC, PESCO, and the European Strategic Compact), the article explores the French-German input in developing European autonomous military tools and capabilities and seeks to explain the legitimacy of this input based on factors such as the historical legacy of French-German military cooperation and the use of political symbolism. Then the article focuses on the question of the efficiency (output) of this bilateral input in European strategic autonomy. The main advantage of this approach is its explanatory power to capture the hiatus between the strong output legitimacy that Paris and Berlin bring into European strategic autonomy and its rather limited empirical output produced. This hiatus can be explained by strategic cultural divergences between Paris and Berlin.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. We will come back to this point in the article.
2. We explored this theoretical model in another article related to Brexit and the role of France and Germany in the relaunch of European defence policy (Deschaux-Dutard Citation2020). Some of the concrete examples referred to in this article (MPCC, PESCO and EII) have been the object of further development too (Deschaux-Dutard Citation2019b).
3. This does not mean that we are diminishing the role played by the other European states, without whose support – albeit sometimes reluctant or sceptical – European defence could not have come about. This is clearly the case with the United Kingdom, without whose agreement at the Franco-British summit in Saint Malo on 4 December 1998, the European defence policy could not have been launched at the Cologne European summit in June 1999. This is also the case for Italy, Spain and even the neutral states at the end of the 1990s, as well as Poland and the Baltic states after the crisis in Georgia in 2008 and even more so since the annexation of Crimea, even if these latter states tend to continue to favour NATO.
4. Participation in the Franco-German SWP-IFRI working group “Towards a Common Defence White Paper – France and Germany joining forces” between December 2016 and December 2017; participation in the Bonn International Security Forum in October 2018 as an invited expert.
5. Clément Beaune has also been a closed councillor of French President Macron on European issues and European defence since 2017 (see Deschaux-Dutard Citation2020).
6. We chose precise examples here and do not aim at covering all the possible examples of French-German input. We decided to focus on two examples aiming at operationalizing EU strategic autonomy by creating concrete capacities and one example aiming at fueling it with strategic thinking. Therefore, we chose not to tackle the industrial cooperation issue here even though this dimension is obviously of high importance, as some excellent work have been provided on the industrial issue (see for example Mölling and Maulny Citation2020; Biermann and Weiss Citation2021).
7. The chosen examples do not aim at exhaustivity but have been selected as they present commonalities in the way they were cooked up within bilateral circles and the way they have been proposed to the other member states. They remain limited examples which may not be considered as the only anchors of a concrete European strategic autonomy.
8. Therefore this bilateral military cooperation is very different from the French-British military cooperation for instance based first on operational objectives (Deschaux-Dutard, Citation2019).
9. Nathalie Tocci, « From the European security strategy to the EU global strategy: Explaining the journey », International Politics, n°4, 54, 2017, p. 487–502.
10. See the joint French–German contribution by French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier entitled “A strong Europe in a world of uncertainty” published on 28 June 2016, five days after the UK referendum, and the joint French-German contribution published on 11 September 2016 by French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and his German counterpart Ursula.
11. See, for example, his State of the Union address on 14 September 2016: “Towards a better Europe – a Europe that protects, strengthens and defends”, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-16-3043_en.htm. Accessed 13/10/2020.
12. Interviews in Berlin (Ministry of Defence and Chancellery), December 2016 and in Paris, March 2017 (Ministry of Defence).
13. https://www.france-allemagne.fr/La-France-et-l-Allemagne-au,1283.html Accessed on 7/05/2020.
14. State of the Union Address “Towards a better Europe – a Europe that protects, strengthens and defends”, 14 September 2016. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-16-3043_en.htm. Accessed 24/02/2020.
15. In a tweet, Jean-Claude Junker outlined that “the Sleeping Beauty of the Lisbon Treaty” had finally wake when PESCO was adopted by the European Council in December 2017. https://twitter.com/junckereu/status/940175532196589568?lang=fr Consulted on 17/06/2021.
16. A new joint letter from the French, German, Italian, and Spanish defence ministers was sent to their European partners to strengthen European defence in the context of the Covid 19 pandemic on 29 May 2020. https://ue.delegfrance.org/lettre-des-ministres-de-la-defense Accessed on 13 November 2020.
17. As several interviewees told us, ideas tended to flow quickly between Paris, Berlin, and Brussels to make the EU’s strategic autonomy a political priority on the European Council’s agenda from December 2016.
18. For many political, institutional, and operational reasons, a European army is not a realistic goal in the short term but serves as a political symbol in times of transatlantic tensions.
19. See Novaky 2020. Several interviews confirmed it. Videoconference interviews, French Ministry of Defence, November 2020 and May 2021.
20. Videoconference by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, IFRI-Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 20/04/2021.
21. Video conference interview, Ministry of the Armed Forces, Paris, November 2020 and May 2021.
22. Video conference interview, Ministry of the Armed Forces, Paris, November 2020.
23. Interview at the Ministry of Armed Forces, Paris, March 2017 and videoconference interview, Ministry of the Armed Forces, Paris, November 2020 and April 2021.
24. Several interviews we led confirmed this too.
25. This is more the purpose of the European Initiative for Intervention launched by President Macron in June 2018 around 9 states and outside the EU framework, in order to compensate for the French disappointment in the form of permanent structured cooperation as endorsed by the European Council.
26. Video conference interview, Ministry of the Armed Forces, Paris, November 2020.
27. Available at: https://cdn5-eeas.fpfis.tech.ec.europa.eu/cdn/farfuture/wM5QZfoVgVbC4zSzD-u–4o8E9TqYoThT3aNfAC6TQA/mtime:1542983709/sites/eeas/files/pesco_factsheet_november_2018_en_0.pdf (accessed 17/06/2021).
28. Videoconference interview, Ministry of Armed Forces, Paris, November 2020 and April 2021.
29. Videoconference interview, Ministry of the Armed Forces, Paris, April 2021.
30. Videoconference interview, Ministry of Armed Forces, Paris, November 2020 and April 2021.
31. https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2018/06/19/declaration-de-meseberg-renouveler-les-promesses-de-l-europe-en-matiere-de-securite-et-de-prosperite Accessed on 18/06/2021.
32. See for instance the White Paper on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr published in July 2016 or the French Strategic Review published in October 2017: even if European defence constitutes a fundamental aspect of both strategic documents, the analysis of the strategic priorities tend to differ significantly.
33. We won’t enter the debate about the existence of a European strategic culture here (see Meyer Citation2006 for instance). Here we consider strategic culture as norms, values, patterns of behaviour as well as historical experience shaping the culture which states tend to manifest in terms of military and strategic matters (Snyder Citation1977; Katzenstein Citation1996).
34. https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook/politico-brussels-playbook-macron-reacts-to-akk-op-ed-germany-talks-lockdown-light-whos-holding-up-the-e-car/ Accessed on 16/11/2020.
35. Restricted videoconference organized by IFRI and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 20/04/20,121.
36. Video conference interview, Ministry of the Armed Forces, Paris, November 2020.
37. See https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/europa/aussenpolitik/new-civilian-csdp-compact/2163520 and https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2018/11/19/civilian-common-security-and-defence-policy-eu-strengthens-its-capacities-to-act/# Accessed 18/06/2021.
38. Restricted videoconference, Sciences Po Paris-CERI, 27/04/20,121.
39. Restricted videoconference, Sciences Po Paris-CERI, 27/04/20,121.
40. Before this vote, the German Bundestag had made it a clear principle to ban arms export to countries either experimenting an armed conflict or taking part in an armed conflict.
41. Restricted videoconference organized by IFRI and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 20/04/2021.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Delphine Deschaux-Dutard
Delphine Deschaux-Dutard is an associate professor in political science at the University Grenoble Alpes. Her current research interests focus on CSDP, French-German military cooperation, parliamentary control of the use of military force in France and Germany, and lately cybersecurity and cyber defense in the EU. She teaches international relations and political science.