14 October 1991: in their celebrated joint letter to the President of the European Council, François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl suggested the creation of a ‘European security and defence academy’.⁽¹⁾ Fourteen years later, on 5 September 2005, the first high-level course at the European Security and Defence College opened in Brussels.

As an aside, one cannot avoid comparing this lengthy process with the founding of the European Police College (CEPOL). This initiative, launched in 1999 in Tampere,⁽²⁾ led in December 2000 to the decision to create the college followed by its inauguration the following autumn–14 months compared with 14 years! Optimists will quote François Rabelais: ‘time ripens and brings all things to maturity; by time everything comes to be made manifest and patent; time is the father of truth’, and pessimists General de Gaulle: ‘Deliberation is the function of many, action is the function of one.’

Aborted Initiatives

Logically, over a period of several years, only the Western European Union (WEU) would continue to consider possible changes to its Institute for Security Studies (ISS).⁽³⁾ It was suggested that it should include, alongside its usual tasks of research, studies and analysis on behalf of the Council and member states, a training or even a ‘support’ task for a ‘club of wise men’, a sort of ‘Institute of France’ dedicated to the cause of European security.⁽⁴⁾ Many of these proposals, long forgotten, still deserve our attention today.