Alain Lamassoure is a European Deputy. Between 1993 and 1995, he was the French ministry of European Affairs.

Abstract

The term card of European foreign policy can be summarised in one word: insignificance. If, within Europe, the European project has succeeded so well that foreign policy has no more raison d’être, outside Europe, on the other hand, where this is all the more necessary, European policy is content with speeches without action, and financing without conditions. Thus, since the fall of the Berlin wall, on such important subjects as war and peace, democracy and development, nothing would have been different in the world without the Union and its gentlemen’s club. Therefore it is time that the Union took charge of its defence and its security, affirming with strength a common foreign policy, re-evaluating the definition of threats, ending the illusion of living in a world where conflicts involve only others. For this there are a number of institutional reforms that are necessary: separating diplomacy from community, revising and harmonising national foreign policies, and taking another look at what constitutes the common destiny.