At the annual two-day Deauville Summit French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev discussed on how security cooperation between the three nations could be improved.

Earlier, in a report the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank claimed a European security trialogue between the EU, Russia and Turkey would be more effective in tackling conflicts and promoting stability in the problem regions of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. “The idea is that an informal forum with the key players could breathe life back into the formal European security institutions,” Mark Leonard told Deutsche Welle. “One of the reasons that the current institutions are dead-locked is the fact that Russia is questioning their legitimacy.”

“Meanwhile Turkey is frustrated at the short-sighted way that some EU member states are holding up the accession process. It is so difficult to get things done through the formal institutions that Europe’s powers are often acting outside them. This is not good for the EU as we want a continent run through multilateral institutions rather than spheres of influence or the balance of power. The report argues that we should therefore engage with the other players to revitalise these institutions.” “The EU is missing an opportunity to think creatively about a new security architecture and come up with its own initiative on the future of the European order,” Leonard added. 

 In Deauville Dmitry Medvedev announced that he will take part in the NATO summit, scheduled for November in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon. The Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization is expected to use the meeting to unveil plans for a European missile defense shield. “We are now evaluating the idea of this proposal, but I think that NATO itself needs to understand in what form it sees Russia joining this system, what it will bring, in what manner an agreement can be reached, and how to proceed further,” Medvedev said.