The world in the stage: a global security strategy for the European Union

The European Union has taken the historic step to draw up a security strategy which will determine the shape of its external policy for years to come. The strategic document prepared by Javier Solana, the EU's High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, will be discussed at the European Council meeting in December. This is an opportunity for the EU to adopt the comprehensive approach to security reflected both in today's reconceptualisation of security issues and in current EU policies, and thus provide its own distinctive response to the new security environment by exploiting to the full the wide range of instruments at its disposal. This paper aims to contribute to the fine-tuning and implementation of the EU's security strategy.