The creation of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in 1998 was the result of an unexpected convergence of minds between Continental Europe and the UK. But even then, the motivations were different: France wanted to assert Europe’s strategic autonomy and establish the EU’s defence pillar, whereas the UK was more interested in showing the United States that Europe was taking its responsibilities for defence seriously after the Balkan wars. Since then, the CSDP has lost its centrality. The UK has largely shunned it, and France has become more pragmatic in its willingness to press for the emergence of a European defence pillar independent from NATO. No coalition has emerged to make a concerted push in favour of more integration in defence or even to add more muscle to existing CSDP structures. [...]