The French-German Military Cooperation and the Revival of European Defence After Brexit: Between Reality and Political Myth

Abstract

This chapter investigates the limits and potentialities opened by Brexit for the relaunch of the CSDP by looking at how new French-German initiatives have been put on the European agenda and are Europeanised. The chapter relies on the concept of strategic culture to show that even if these initiatives are numerous and tend to bring CSDP forward, the political contingent environment persists. If the retreat of the UK opened new possibilities to deepen European defence and make it evolve in the direction of a more important European strategic autonomy, it will not lift all the obstacles encountered by CSDP in the last decade. Methodologically, the chapter applies path dependence and content analysis, a comparative research design and data from official strategic communication and expert interviews.