ENHANCING EUROPEAN SECURITY: MODERN CHALLENGES POSED BY NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The proposal of Europeanising French deterrence was revived by French President Emmanuel Macron, who declared in February 2020 that French nuclear forces reinforce European security simply by existing and suggested a strategic dialogue with all EU partners regarding the role of French nuclear weapons in European security. Macron further reasoned that this issue is increasingly urgent nowadays as the EU must jointly realise that, because of the lack of a legal structure, they may easily find themselves vulnerable to the resumption of a traditional, even nuclear, arms race on their land. The prospects of global control of weapons and disarmament efforts are very blurry in the times of rising political tensions, revived nuclear arms races, and weakening trust in multilateralism. Nevertheless, this all leads to the necessity to support active actions towards nuclear risk reductions, whichhave recently appeared in some of the multilateral forums. The elimination of nuclear risk is nothing but an intermediate measure to reduce nuclear proliferation dangers until they are liquidated. It is essential to review the risks of accidents involving nuclear weapons and their influence on European security, along with focusing on the role of European nuclear weapon states (NWS), their place in global security and possible scenarios for their future: the authors considered the possible prospects of the EU as another entity with nuclear weapons, as well as the likelihood of the EU as another regional nuclear-free zone and discussed whether the real change is possible.