Over the last two years, Europe has taken a number of crucial yet very difficult steps to address the mounting crisis. In Italy and across Europe, citizens are making painful sacrifices. European governments have come together to reform the architecture of the European Union. […] Our economic fortunes are inextricably linked, and our economic relationship with Europe is an important part of our efforts to create jobs and prosperity in the United States. The European Union is America’s single largest economic partner.

Nevertheless the president said European countries need to raise a “bigger firewall” to prevent the debt crisis to spread, and must “show their absolute commitment to the future of economic integration in Europe”.

Obama also stressed the importance of NATO ­– praising Italy’s decision to extend its commitment in Afghanistan beyond 2014 – and Europe’s role in the “Arab spring”, hoping it will help add pressure on Syria’s Bashar el Assad to resign. But if Washington is already mulling over military intervention, as disclosed by CNN, European countries still oppose it and count on a last-gasp diplomatic solution, La Stampa reports.

Furthermore, recent events such as the Arab revolutions place Europe in a strategic location which President Obama cannot afford to neglect. “The United States needs the British and the French as well as NATO, both militarily and financially,” Le Monde notes. Barack Obama is “courting the Europeans also on the Israeli-Palestinian question,” on which Washington fears isolation “when the time comes to take a stand on the recognition of the Palestinian State, in September at the UN”. This recognition is a “powerful divisive factor” for the Europeans, the paper notes.

Under the terms of the pact agreed on 2 November, the British and French military will establish a “combined joint expeditionary force” of 5,000 troops and share two aircraft carriers by 2020. There will also be industrial cooperation to develop drones, satellites and communications technology. But the most surprising and highly symbolic aspect of the deal concerns British military use of French nuclear testing equipment, which is set to begin in 2014.

For France, to collaborate with a country that already has an extensive nuclear co-operation programme with the US, is a major paradigm shift from the defence doctrine based on national sovereignty established by de Gaulle. It’s a move that will blur the traditional distinction between the two philosophies of European defence – one provided by NATO under the American nuclear umbrella, and a European defence associated with NATO but nonetheless capable of autonomous action. Let’s not forget that France only rejoined the integrated military command of NATO in April 2009.

The new agreement is both good and bad news for Europe. The good news is that the Franco-British initiative could pave the way for further European synergies in a field that has a critical impact on the global influence of the EU. The bad news is that this will only happen if it is expanded beyond its current bilateral format. Writing in El País, Spanish international affairs specialist José Ignacio Torreblanca remarks that the problem with the 2 November accord is the fact that it does not refer to Europe’s defence and security policy. The agreement may well be historic, but without European involvement, it will amount to little more than another cost-cutting measure prompted by the economic crisis.

When they met in Saint-Malo in 1998, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair announced that a new era of Franco-British military cooperation would push forward the agenda for European defence. However, their plans were later derailed by disagreement over the invasion of Iraq. If they want to revive this ambition, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron will have to add further political dimension to their vision for military cooperation.