The EU Secretary General Javier Solana in an intervention at the Bertelsmann Foundation in Berlin in July 2002 and in a variety of other occasions tried to address the “perception that Europe offers too much talk and too little action” by stressing how “Europe delivered action as well as words” in Afghanistan, in the Balkans and in the fight against terrorism (Solana S0135/02) 1. By interchangeably referring to “Europe”, “Europeans” and the “EU” in the same context, he created the impression that, at the end of the day, it does not make any difference under what hat decisions for action are taken since in any case they are to be re-conducted to a kind of abstractly and unclearly defined entity also known under the name of “Europe”. For the credibility of the European Union as an international actor in general and of the ESDP in particular, it makes however a huge difference if a mission is successfully conducted under the starry blue insignia, or if it is merely the intervention of one or many of its Member States acting outside the EU framework and Solana, as it will be showed in the following, is well aware of this discrepancy and seems to exploit the confusion for his own rhetorical aims. By the same token, the words pronounced by the EU leadership in foreign affairs should be matched in deeds by the European Union acting as an “independent” institution with own personality, since they emanate from “speakers” institutionally representing the organization as such and not from its members taken individually or, per absurdum, from its geographical neighbors or “civilizational” friends.