Ever since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, the European Union has been debating how to endow itself with a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the possibility of using the Western European Union (WEU), a body originally established to

For example, the Reflection Group (on institutional reform of the Intergovernmental Conference in 1996 prior to the signing of the Amsterdam Treaty) offered four different possibilities for the relationship between the Western European Union and the EU: - full autonomy for the WEU, with only a reinforced partnership with the EU; - a closer link between the EU and the WEU to allow the former to dir. [...] the General Affairs Council [has the task] to prepare the conditions and the measures necessary to achieve these objectives, including the definition of the modalities for the inclusion of those functions of the WEU which will be necessary for the EU to fulfil its new responsibilities in the area of Petersberg tasks." The second new factor, a consequence of the first, is that relations with NATO w. [...] European defence: a fragmented and ineffective collection of national policies Before examining the issue of reorganisation of the European institutional set-up in the defence field, it may be important to draw attention to the high level of fragmentation currently present among the national defence structures of the Union. [...] In reality, the process of convergence between defence policies and other policies of the Union will start at the highest level, that is, in the European Council, as is already the case to some extent under the provisions of Art.17 for the Petersberg missions. [...] The solution will involve a close linkage between the High Representative, the president of the Commission (or Commissioner competent for CFSP matters) and the President in office of the Foreign and Defence Council in the framework of a new Troika, which should be assigned, in addition to its traditional tasks, that of coordinating and checking on the institutional consistency among the various as.