ABSTRACT
This chapter explores why the British government took the decision to formally Europeanize its defence policy and thus transfer elements of its defence and security competencies to the EU under ESDP. The motivational aspects for these transfers are particularly important to those seeking to make sense of Europeanization as a political phenomenon. Influence over the speed and direction of formal Europeanization, particularly in the defence and security spheres, therefore seems to be dependent on standard conceptions of balances of power within the international system. The question of what the EU is and how it serves to advance or hinder the work and role of national governments is crucial to an analysis or formal Europeanization. The final element of formal Europeanization, the transfer or pooling of sovereignty, proceeds along liberal intergovernmentalist lines. From the British government's perspective the ESDP outcome was an efficient and rational development, securing its pro-European and Atlanticist preferences.
