Paris, 24/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - In the April Newsletter from the WEU Institute for Security Studies, Nicole Gnesotto, Director of the Institute, looks at the relations between the European Union and the new American Administration, when noting in particular that "the Republicans knew the hesitant Europe of Maastricht, but must now get used to a Union that has the Euro and the ESDP, the Europe of Nice, in short a very different Europe from the one they have always know". According to her, the EU 15 should thus be more confident in themselves and, in particular, recognise that it would be "perfectly normal for the Europeans to share among themselves their national analysis of threats" represented by ballistic missiles, and that they discuss, "together with the Americans, the pertinence of anti-missile defences as an answer to the problem" of threats. It would be surprising if the Europeans do not study together the planned American "(N)MD" (anti-missile defence, the members of the Administration having recently dropped the "national"), "no doubt the most important for the world system in thirty years", feels Mrs Gnesotto, while recognising that the bilateral channels and the Atlantic alliance should be "the privileged means used for the consultation promised by Washington on the development and impact of the anti-missile programmes".
In the same Newsletter, Antonio Missiroli examines the impact of enlargement on CFSP, by noting that, "curiously, in the accession negotiations the chapter on common foreign and security policy was already closed with the twelve candidate countries". However, it seems that if ESDP and external relations will in the future become "bone of contention between the old and new members", and even if this appears unlikely to him, he notes that "new questions could surface", such as that of the level of permeability of the future EU borders, or the shape and scope of ESDP itself. More generally, Mr Missiroli notes that, in a perfect world, the present negotiations would not unfold between "us" and "them" but would concern the "future us".