While Member States’ Ambassadors are expected to discuss, on Friday 26 June, the EU Council’s decision on the ‘general conditions for exceptional participation by third States in individual Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) projects’, EUROPE has obtained an EU Council working document, dated 8 June, which takes stock of the negotiations.
In order to participate, according to the draft decision, a non-Member State will have to share “the values on which the EU is founded” and not contravene the security and defence interests of the EU and its Member States, “including respect for the principle of good neighbourly relations with the Member States”, and it must have a political dialogue with the EU.
In addition, the non-Member State must “provide a substantial added value to the project”. Its contribution will have to be complementary to those offered by the participating Member States. The EU Council also considers that such participation should not lead to dependency on the non-Member State or to restrictions that would impede progress or prevent the use, export or operational deployment of the capability developed under the project.
Member States have yet to decide whether these restrictions will be specified, citing “armament procurement, research and capability development, or the use and export of arms or capabilities and technology”. The non-Member State will also need to have a security of information agreement in place with the EU.
Participation in projects supported by the European Defence Agency will require an administrative arrangement with the Agency. Currently, only Norway, Switzerland, Serbia and Ukraine have such an agreement.
Ambassadors are also asked to clarify the duration of non-Member States’ participation in projects. According to discussions in the Relex working group, a possible solution would be to regulate the duration based on the stages of participation or phases of PESCO. In this case, the document states that it will have to be determined whether the extension of participation will be automatic or whether it will require a new decision by the EU Council, and whether additional safeguards, such as ‘neutral’ evaluation, will have to be included.
Another subject of debate is the participation in PESCO projects of entities established in the Union and controlled by a non-Member State or by an entity from a non-Member State. Discussions in the working group highlighted the need, in particular cases, for an emergency brake. Member States will have to decide whether, in these cases, such a brake requires an EU Council decision to include or exclude the entity from a project and whether additional safeguards are needed to ensure an objective assessment on the basis of which the EU Council would decide whether the participation of such an entity would be contrary to the security and defence interests of the EU and its Member States.
See the document: https://bit.ly/3hW3D7i (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)