A European White Book on Security and Defence In 1975 Leo Tindemans, then Prime Minister of Belgium, wrote in his report to the European Council the following: “The European Union will not be complete until it has drawn up a common defence policy”. This prophetic words have still to be fulfilled. With the treaty of Maastricht the European Community has evolved towards a European Union which includes a Common Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (CFSP) and a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). The treaty of Lisbon, when ratified, will bring the European Union a step further by deepening the integration process. The guidebook for the European Security and Defence Policy is the European Security Strategy adopted in 2003 and reviewed in 2008. It is an attempt by the EU Member States to identify the threats they are collectively facing and to establish the principles on which both CFSP and ESDP should be based and implemented. This document, as innovative as it is, is not sufficient to serve as a guide for action. By concentrating on the threats faced by the EU and not on the common interests of the EU Member States, it is of limited value for the further development of ESDP. This makes the drafting of a White Book on Security and Defence an absolute necessity because without efficient crisis management tools as they can be provided by appropriate civilian and military capabilities, the EU will not be able to play the role it should play on the international stage as a responsible and committed partner of the international community. The sheer size of the EU in terms of population, wealth, trade, development aid, and the diversified historic experiences of its Member States, makes it a unique actor of the international community. Its capacity to find compromises internally and the way it presents itself as the opposite of a superpower enable it to mediate more easily than others between parties in conflict and therefore to boost itself as a model for shaping international relations. The EU must become more assertive as it has been the case until recently and think of itself in strategic terms. The European Security Foundation is currently elaborating guiding principles for a European White Book on Defence. This paper should help to trigger a public debate on what a European White Book on Security and Defence could look like. This European White Book should in fact prolong the European Security Strategy by committing the EU Member States to a more effective European (or “Common” as spelled out in the Treaty of Lisbon) Security and Defence Policy, in particular through rationalizing their defence spending because without the right mix of resources, forces and equipments, the European Union will not be able to conduct credible crisis management missions and operations and protect its interests if they were to be threatened. A European White Book on Security and Defence should start by affirming the values of the European Union and defining the common interests which have to be protected and even defended through its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). It should then proceed with an analysis of the threats against these common values and interests. Finally it must indicate which common efforts will be needed in terms of capabilities, both civilian and military, in order to enable the European Union to fully play its role on the world stage.