After more than 14 hours of negotiations on Monday 21 March to get Member States to agree, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell presented the ‘Strategic Compass’ (see EUROPE 12915/10) to a group of journalists on Tuesday.
“This is a plan. It may be good or bad, but if it is not implemented, it is useless. I will be the master to put it into practice; I will remind the Member States of their commitments. Now the real story starts”, he explained, saying that implementation would be a challenge not easily met.
One of the first objectives of the ‘Compass’ will be to define before the end of the year - probably at the Foreign Affairs/Defence Council in November 2022 - the intervention scenarios for the rapid deployment capability. “Member States will have to propose to us what kind of capabilities they are ready to provide for a mission. The kind of force will depend on the challenge, to construct the necessary capabilities to be deployed”, Mr Borrell explained.
This rapid deployment capability could be involved in combat missions. “The Treaties provide for the EU to engage in a combat mission. We should not only be a good Samaritan, but a second Red Cross”, explained the head of diplomacy. “If NATO acts, we won't have to; if NATO doesn't act, we will have to think about acting”, he added, stressing that the ‘Compass’ was complementary to NATO.
The High Representative clarified that the tactical groups would not be abolished. However, the latter will be reformed.
Asked by EUROPE about the lack of a target figure for military spending, Mr Borrell said the ‘Strategic Compass’ was not an investment plan.
Twenty-three EU Member States are members of NATO and have therefore committed themselves to spending the equivalent of 2% of their GDP on defence by 2024. According to the High Representative, there is no point in agreeing on a figure, as Member States do not put the same expenses under the heading of ‘defence expenditure’, with some counting military pensions, for example, within the 2%.
“The important thing is how we spend together”, he said, regretting that joint spending accounted for only 11% of expenditure in 2020, compared to 25% in 2011. “There is room to do things together”, he said, highlighting research and development in particular. According to Mr Borrell, “the EU’s efforts to fill the gaps in the coordinated approach have not been brilliant”.
The High Representative revealed that the only issue on which there was no consensus among Member States was military expenditure and whether or not it should be included in budgetary discipline. “It is not up to the foreign ministers to discuss what should or should not be part of budgetary discipline (...) this is something that will have to continue to be discussed”, Mr Borrell said. On the same day, EU Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni explained that the financing of EU defence investments would require a more favourable framework of tax rules. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)