Brussels, 08/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - The first meeting of EU defence ministers in stand-alone format, held on Thursday 9 December in the context of the Foreign Affairs Council and chaired by EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, will focus on capabilities. Foreign ministers will be meeting on 13 December, in the context of the Foreign Affairs Council, to confirm decisions taken by the defence ministers. Work will mainly relate to the adoption of guidelines on the development of EU civil and military capabilities after 2010 (the final date for the two Headline Goals, civil and military, for the planning of EU development capabilities). Work will also be launched on the action plan for research into civil-military synergy.
Defence ministers will have the task of approving the 2011 budget for the European Defence Agency (EDA) and that of appointing the new EDA executive director. Counter to common practice, no working session is scheduled on the subject of EU military operations underway. Ministers will tackle this matter over a working lunch attended by Catherine Ashton and the commanders of the three ongoing EU military operations: General John McColl for Operation EUFOR Althea in Bosnia-Herzegovina, General Buster Howes for EU NAVFOR Atalanta and Colonel Ricardo Gonzalez Elul for the European Union Training Mission (EUTM) to train security forces in Somalia.
Before initiating the first and only working session of the Council, EU defence ministers will hold an informal meeting with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. In particular, their meeting will cover capability cooperation development between the EU and NATO. Ministers and the secretary general will take stock of progress reached to counter improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and in relation to medical support.
After the ministerial meeting, under the chairmanship of the high representative, a working session will begin at 10.00am on capabilities, after work on pooling and sharing begun during their informal meeting in Ghent in September this year. Council discussion will take place on the basis of a joint paper presented recently by Sweden and Germany on intensifying military cooperation in Europe. Defence ministers are expected to also hold a discussion on civil-military synergies in capability development and to welcome the report on the development of EU civil and military capabilities post-2010. It will be up to the Foreign Affairs Council on 13 December to give the go-ahead to starting work on preparing an action plan on synergies, a first version of which is due in June 2011. Thirteen areas with greater added value have been identified at this stage, including strategic and tactical transport, communications, medical support, force protection and security, a European diplomatic source states. Ministers will also be invited to look in earnest at the question of battlegroups (GT-1500), which make up the EU rapid response forces. We would point out that the EU's current objective is to have two multinational battlegroups (each the size of a battalion) placed on standby in each half-year. “It is important that we maintain the same level of ambition” although, over the past years, we have noted “certain shortfalls”, a European source said. At this stage, commitments in tactical battlegroups are assured until the first half of 2015, although there are gaps during the first half of 2012 when only one GT-1500 is currently declared (headed by France with Belgium and Luxembourg), during the first and second half of 2013 and during the first half of 2014.
Defence ministers will then pursue their meeting in the format of the European Defence Agency Steering Board (the 26 EU member states except Denmark), under the presidency of Catherine Ashton, who heads the Agency. Appointment of the new executive director will be the main topic covered by the meeting. The Steering Board is expected to choose the new executive director after the departure, in October, of Alexander Weiss from Germany. Despite the fact that Italy (backed by Germany) is blocking the appointment process, the candidate proposed by Ashton, Claude-France Arnould, is still a contender. On the other hand, it is the Council that will have to approve the EDA's 2011 budget. A slight rise in the budget was proposed by Ashton (€31.2 million in 2011 compared to €30.5 million in 2010) due to the new staff recruitment plans at the EDA. However, as the United Kingdom is opposed to this increase, the decision will be referred to the Council (which enacts unanimously). (A.By./transl.jl)