European defence: A proposal for a white paper. Report of an independent task force

Following the shock of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, the Institute decided, in 2002, to convene an independent task force in order to address the issue of future European capabilities. The main task of the group, which was made up of some of the best-known academic experts on ESDP, was to determine the most likely generic crisis scenarios that the EU could face in the decades to come, to assess the capabilities needed to meet each of these contingencies, to identify the main shortfalls within current European forces, and to propose remedies and options for adapting European capabilities, if military intervention were to be decided on at the EU level.