Introducing words:
Nick Witney, European Council on Foreign Relations, Paris
Solomon Passy, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, National Assembly
Ivan Krastev, Centre for Liberal Strategies
Vessela Tcherneva, European Council on Foreign Relations, Head of Sofia Office
Any re-design of ESDP must acknowledge two central facts. First, no Member State will allow itself to be forced to enter conflict, or to change how it spends its defence budget, by ‘Brussels’ – whether an EU institution, or a majority of its partners. And second, a significant minority of Member States demonstrate, by their reluctance to make any serious investment in defence, or by their tendency to sit on their hands when the call goes out for contributions to crisis-management operations, that they really do not want to play.