When the EU was established and many decades after, one of its most remarkable characteristics was that it was an internationally recognized civilian power, a player on the international level that was able to maintain its status and recognition without the promotion or use of military power. However, the development of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) has raised widespread concerns over the EU’s identity as a civilian power and the gradual replacement of civilian power policy by military force. The Europeanization in the field of security and defence thus threatens to lead to a loss of control in executive decision-making on the use of military force by national parliaments which neither the European Parliament nor the former WEU have been able to compensate.

Many describe this process as the second strand of the ‘double democratic deficit’ that has been residing in the European Union. The first strand is the familiar notion of a general democratic deficit in the European Union, which has been a topic of debate ever since European Integration went beyond the establishment of a Free Trade Area. However, it is true that there are several grave distinctions that need to be made between the democratic deficit in the first and the one in the second pillar. Firstly, military missions have a bigger impact on ‘Europeans’ than the regulations of some domestic issues, since European citizens are sent to battlefields. Secondly, the democratic deficit within ESDP causes a reduction in legitimacy of the European military missions, which can, if a mission fails, lead to a severe loss in support in other policy fields. Finally, the EU is in danger of losing one of its outstanding characteristics as being a successful civilian power.

Since the coming into existence of the ESDP the EU has participated in a few military peace missions across the world, beginning with the initiation of a police mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2003 against the background of bloodshed in the Balkans. In fact, that same year, in view of the possible ratification of a European constitution, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and France had called for a further strengthening of the Union’s military forces in order to manage the increasing heterogeneity within the Union and tackle its responsibilities in promoting peace responsibly.

European Foreign Policy is about to undergo some amendments on Dec.1, 2009 when the Lisbon treaty comes into force. Not only will the ESDP experience a change in name (it will become the Common Security and Defence Policy - CSDP) and some personnel modifications but the CSDP has the progressive framing of a Common Defence Policy as one of its tasks, which will lead to the adoption of common military action when the Council of the EU decides so unanimously. In that case it will require the Member States to adopt such a decision with respect to their individual constitutional requirements - in order not to prejudge the MS’ individual security and defence policies (which some of them already see sufficiently realized in NATO). Hence, the Union is progressing towards enhanced Europeanization in the military sector, but simultaneously it tries to keep up the appearance of sovereignty of national parliaments in deployment decisions. This, however appears to be a very thin layer of sovereignty and once one scratches the surface of this a bit, there is no obvious enhancement of parliamentary control in the sector. Consequently, there won’t be an improvement of the democratic deficit but rather a small extension in the consolidation of a common defence. Legal challenges in the field by the MS are to be expected.

Especially in Germany, the democratic deficit in EU decision-making under Lisbon has already provoked a wave of trials challenging the compatibility of the treaty with the German constitution. Finally, the constitutional court declared the compatibility but only under the condition that additional laws ensuring the participation of the national parliaments on the European level would be implemented in order to maintain democracy. The little control over deployment decisions on the European level seems to be even graver in its impact on more than just the democratic deficit dimension - with regard to Germany’s past. It might be speculative to say but it is very likely that acceptance of the CSDP won’t be as smooth as is desired by the EU.