EUROPEAN SECURITY INTEGRATION IN THE 1990s
EUROPEAN SECURITY INTEGRATION IN THE 1990s

Author(s): Ian Gambles
Subject(s): Security and defense, Military policy, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
Published by: EUISS European Union Institute for Security Studies
Keywords: post-war Western Europe; European security; Treaty of Rome; NATO;
Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the concept of European security integration. This is a complex and difficult concept, a nexus of different ideas rather than a coherent idea in its own right. Integration is the combination of diverse parts to make a whole, and international integration is the product of a process of convergence between the policies, procedures, institutions, commitments, and expectations of a number of different states and peoples. Security is a more contested idea, but may provisionally be understood as the protection of a people from external threats, and includes arrangements for defence and deterrence. Now while European integration generally refers to the development of European unity among the Twelve(1) in the context of the Treaty of Rome, European security is generally considered within the context of the North Atlantic Treaty. The words `integration' and `security' have tended to be claimed by two distinct groups of students and practitioners. Thus the transition from the familiar debates in the field of European security, where integration meant no more than international cooperation, to a new debate in the context of the process of European political integration, involves the coming together of historically separate traditions of thought.

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