Brussels, 19/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - Even before the debate started on the common security and defence policy (CSDP) and on the European defence industry on Thursday 19 December, the statements from the heads of state and government underlined the very great diversity of ambitions and centres of interest. London particularly stands out. UK Prime Minister David Cameron affirmed that “it isn't right for the European Union to have capabilities, armies, air forces”.
This European Council will certainly not achieve the level of ambition desired by the European Parliament. Despite the insistence of Parliament President Martin Schulz, the heads of state and government will not be seizing this rare opportunity that this meeting offers to engage in the development “of a new European security strategy”, as Schulz had asked them during his traditional speech to the European Council. Without such a strategy, the comment of Belgium's Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo on the fact that today “we are not a Europe of integrated defence at all, but we are making steps”, takes on its full meaning.
One of these steps will consist of increasing cooperation. On this, there is a semblance of consensus. However, Cameron wanted to draw a red line - “we need to get that demarcation correct between cooperation, which is right, and capabilities, which is wrong”. This remark somewhat irritated NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. At the end of his meeting with the European Council on Thursday 19 December, he stressed that “it is not NATO or the EU that possesses these assets” for the development of military capabilities that the heads of states and government are being asked to support. These defence capabilities “are owned by individual nations (…). They allow those nations to make a stronger contribution to addressing crises in any framework they choose - be it EU or NATO or any other way”.
The French delegation arrived in Brussels promoting the idea of a special basis for financing the deployment of the EU rapid reaction force, the tactical groups, and civil and military missions under the CSDP. A reform of the financing mechanism should, according to Paris, strengthen the capability of Europeans to respond jointly, especially in situations similar to those in which France has recently found itself on two occasions. At the same time, France continues to hope for more European support for its ongoing intervention in the Central African Republic. France's President François Hollande thanked his European counterparts warmly for their “political support” - he is today expecting “finance to follow”, he said on arriving in Brussels. Belgium is ready to give a helping hand, as is Poland, but only on the logistical level for the moment. Di Rupo cut short the rumours of 500 Belgian soldiers being sent to the Central African Republic to secure the airport by stating that such a decision, if it should ever be taken, “will be made in a European framework and certainly not on a uniquely bilateral level”. (JK/OJ/transl.fl)