The Capability-Expectations Gap in a Time of War
Journal: Studia Europejskie-Studies in European Affairs
Year: 2025

The concept of the capability-expectations gap (CEG) which I originated in 1993 arose out of the debate about the Maastricht Treaty. Hopes, ambitions and predictions had been proliferating about the possibility of a genuinely common European foreign policy developing in the new post-Soviet international order. My view was more sceptical, even though positive about the idea in principle, on the grounds that the EU was still a long way from making the sovereignty derogations in in foreign policy w