Rise of nations nuke free#

The European Commission, already under Juncker, spent money on joint defense industrial projects via the European Defense Fund (EDF). The 2016 EU Global Strategy talks about вЂњstrategic autonomyвЂќ. Nevertheless, European defense integration is slowly deepening. Since the Treaty of Maastricht, it has even a вЂњcommonвЂќ foreign and security (including defense) policy, although still intergovernmental and therefore less important than the national foreign policies, especially those of the larger EU states. The EU has its own currency (limited to the eurozone).

Although the EU is not a state, it has many characteristics of a state: it has a territory with open borders in the Schengen zone, a population (= combination of the people of the EU member states, which all have a European passport), it speaks with one voice on trade policy, it has a research, industrial, and social policy, and more. On the 7 th of February 2020, President Macron in a long awaited speech at the Ecole de Guerre in Paris stated that the French nuclear forces вЂњstrengthen the security of Europe through their very existenceвЂќ, and proposed to have a вЂњstrategic dialogueвЂќ with the EU partners about the role of the French nuclear weapons in European security (Macron 2020).

Rise of nations nuke free#

The second part applies this debate to the future role of the non-American nuclear weapons in the EU: is there a chance that the French nuclear weapons will be further Europeanized, or will the EU in contrast turn itself into another nuclear weapon free zone (similar to Latin America, the Pacific, and Africa), or will not much change ? It is argued that the outcome of this political debate to a large extent will be determined by the outcome of the aforementioned general debate about power and legitimacy of nuclear weapons. It is argued that power and deterrence are concepts that are constructed and given meaning by people. The first part of this article outlines the debate between those who regard nuclear weapons as powerful and legitimate defense instruments and those who perceive them as too powerful and therefore illegitimate. This article hopes to clarify that debate. But the more the EU takes steps towards defense integration, the closer the moment comes that the role of the French nuclear weapons has to be discussed. For the European Union, nuclear weapons are a taboo.