The Deputy Secretary-General of the European External Action Service for the Common Security and Defence Policy and Crisis Response, Charles Fries, regretted on Monday 28 September the difference that can exist between words and actions in the field of defence.
“From a political point of view, there is often a gap between words and concrete commitments”, he told the European Parliament Subcommittee on Security and Defence.
This difficulty is reflected in the implementation of EU missions and operations, which deploy 4,500 men and women on the ground. Indeed, according to Mr Fries, the Covid-19 crisis is already having an impact on budgets. “Recruitment of civilian staff for the missions in Ukraine and Georgia is already becoming difficult”, he revealed. Other missions, such as EUTM Somalia and EUTM RCA, are also understaffed.
The strategic compass currently being developed, one of the objectives of which is crisis management, could help strengthen missions. “We need to focus on incentives to make it simpler to commit forces and broaden the range of eligible costs for CSDP military missions and to make the mandate more flexible and sometimes more robust”, he said.
The Deputy Secretary-General also announced that the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy would make proposals before the end of the year to enhance the contribution of non-Member States to EU missions. “While retaining the autonomy of our decision-making process, we will look at how to make operations more attractive to partner countries”, he explained, acknowledging that there was sometimes frustration among partner countries, which send troops but do not participate in the decision-making process.
Asked about the European Peace Facility, Mr Fries recalled that its amount had been halved in the Multiannual Financial Framework compared to the initial proposal, to 5 billion euros. However, this amount is still higher than that of the Athena mechanism and the African Peace Facility currently in place. “We have a real margin for an extension of common costs for our missions”, he stressed. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)