Acceso usuarios
Irlanda
Donald Trump's re-election as President of the United States and Russia's aggression of Ukrainepose unprecedented challenges to transatlantic relations and European security. The EU as it is isunprepared to take care of its defence. This article explores how the law can be activated creativelyto achieve defence integration in Europe and proposes to revive the 1952 European Defence Com-munity (EDC) Treaty. Specifically, the article claims that, in strictly legal terms, the EDC can bebrought into operation today—simply with the ratification by two states: France and Italy—and pro-vides comprehensive arguments from public international law, comparative law and domestic consti-tutional law to make the point. Needless to say, legal feasibility does not equate with politicalfeasibility, and the article mentions several of the obstacles and challenges along this path. Yet,shedding light the EDC has two advantages. On the one hand, the article emphasises how theEDC—with a common army, funded by a common budget and governed by supranationalinstitutions—constituted an articulated response to the problem of securing European security. Onthe other hand, it identifies a differentiated path to achieve greater European defence integration.
