European Security Trends. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series, Vol. 3 No. 6, September 2003

It is not the task of this paper to speculate on whether the EU will become more important than NATO in European security governance. Rather the paper seeks to examine: (1) which of the two is deemed most relevant in dealing with certain specific types of threats, and whether a division of labour among the leading security institutions is emerging accordingly; and (2) whether coordination, especially on issues of military engagement, is becoming easier rather than more difficult among the lead security organisations. Underlying these aims is the assumption that for European security governance to be effective it needs a sharing and coordinating mechanism. As the market cannot be left simply to the “unseen hand” of demand and supply, and needs, frameworks and regulations provided either by states or international organisations for a proper functioning, a similar argument can be made for security governance