THE EUROPEAN UNION’S COMMON FOREIGN AND SECURITY POLICY FROM MAASTRICHT TO LISBON: MISSION UNACCOMPLISHED

This paper debates the origins and the main steps of the European Union’s Common foreign, security, and, later, defence policy since the revival of security cooperation in Western Europe and the inclusion of European Political Cooperation into the Single European Act in the 1980s until the signing of the Lisbon Treaty in 2007. More specifically, it focuses on the establishment of the Common Foreign and Security Policy with the treaty of Maastricht in 1992 and on the main initiatives that the European Union member countries adopted during 1990s in order to formalize a European security and defence identity. Keywords: realism, constructivism, European Union, security, defence, Maastricht treaty, St. Malo agreement, Common Foreign and Security Policy, Common Security and Defence Policy, NATO, United Kingdom, France, United States