If one looks at the rapid growth of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) since the Blair-Chirac meeting of Saint-Malo in 1998 and in particular at the launch of several crisis management missions it is worth asking , in the light of these experiences, whether and how far this area of cooperation has progressively moved into forms of communitarisation/fusion (to use a theory developed by Wolfgang Wessels) or whether, due to its strictly inter-governmental character, it might be turning into a tool of fragmentation between policies, forms of governance and institutions. The answer is not just to be found in the new articles of the Lisbon Treaty but rather in the willingness or otherwise of the member states to use these articles in the most coherent way.
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