The European Union and weapons of mass destruction : a follow-on to the global strategy? / [electronic resource] by Lars-Erik Lundin

SIP1723

"May 2017".

The differentiation of WMD-related threats over the past decade, however, has risked making crisis response too slow and uncoordinated at all levels, from the local to the global. In parallel, there is the constant risk that the lessons learned from the more or less successful application of deterrence and other types of influencing methods are being forgotten. In addition, differences in the level of awareness between the large and small countries in Europe and across thematic sectors risk further delaying action, not least in support of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime as a whole. If a multi-sector crisis were to occur in some way linked to WMD, the lack of a level playing field in this regard could cause existential problems for certain EU member states.

The EU Non-Proliferation Consortium is a network of foreign policy institutions and research centres from across the EU engaged in political and security-related dialogue and discussion of measures to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems. The Consortium is managed jointly by SIPRI and three other institutes, in close cooperation with the representative of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The three institutes are the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique in Paris, the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt (HSFK/PRIF), and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.

This paper expands on and updates WMD proliferation-related aspects of the book by the author Lundin, L.-E., The EU and Security: A Handbook for Practitioners (Santérus: Stockholm, 2015), in particular section 4.2. It also builds on the logic of focusing on the need for a comprehensive approach by the EU to non-proliferation work initially outlined in the paper by Lundin, L.-E., ‘The European Union, the IAEA and WMD non-proliferation: unity of approach and continuity of action’, Non-proliferation Paper no. 9, EU Non-Proliferation Consortium, Feb. 2012, <https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/ Nonproliferation9.pdf>. The collection of material for this paper has to a large extent been carried out using the website <www.lelundin.org> as a basis, including subpages relating to arms control.

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