ABSTRACT
A founding member of the European Union , Belgium has always tried to promote the idea of an increasingly strengthened European integration, including in the area of defence, while at the same time considering NATO as the cornerstone of European security. However, since the end of the Cold War, defence has been sacrificed on the altar of fiscal consolidation. Moreover, both the country’s defence policy and its vision of European defence depend on internal political balances that illustrate its consociational approach to domestic politics. Recent budgetary commitments seem to put an end to this situation. The war in Ukraine could lead the country to go beyond its internal struggles to develop a new approach to European strategic autonomy.
