In summer 2000, commenting on the implications of a European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI), Peter Schmidt, Head of the Department of European and Atlantic Security at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik Research Centre in Ebenhausen (Federal Republic of Germany), outlines the nature and the possible consequences, with particular regard to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), of the European Union’s plans to absorb Western European Union (WEU) and to establish a rapid reaction corps by 2003.