The Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service for the Common Security and Defence Policy and Crisis Response, Charles Fries, announced on Monday 28 March that the EU/NATO Joint Declaration could be adopted by the end of June.
“The Madrid summit, [of NATO, ed.] at the end of June, should highlight the depth and strength of our strategic partnership and we will see if, on this occasion, we can make progress in the adoption of this famous new joint declaration between our two organisations”, he explained at a hearing before the European Parliament’s Security and Defence sub-committee. The Deputy Secretary General explained that the ‘Strategic Compass’, adopted last week by the EU, was the “European contribution to NATO’s future Strategic Concept”, which is due to be adopted at the Madrid Summit.
Mr Fries went back to the future implementation of the ‘Compass’, which includes 50 concrete actions with specific timeframes.
Turning to the rapid deployment capability, which was to be operational by 2025, Mr Fries explained that it would be composed of both the battle groups, which would be revised, and the member states’ forces, which were pre-identified capabilities.
“We hope that in 2023/2024 we will be able to change the way the battle groups work so that they are more effective”, he told MEPs. “We will try to act on the various parameters, including making sure that they are on stand-by for a longer period of time to be more efficient, train together, which is not the case”, added Fries.
The Deputy Secretary General hoped that the operational scenarios could be adopted by the Ministers in November, already highlighting two possible scenarios: evacuation, rescue of European citizens globally, and stabilisation missions in a non-permissive environment.
The aim is to have a first Europe-wide exercise in 2023.
Mr Fries also announced that the measures contained in the ‘Compass’ in the field of cyber and hybrid threats would be implemented as of this year, “including the hybrid toolbox, but also the creation of new instruments against disinformation and foreign interference”, including sanctions. “These new tools will give us a basis for deploying rapid response teams against hybrid threats and to assist our partners”, said Fries.
According to him, an update of the threat analysis contained in the ‘Compass’ will be carried out this year. Each year, a report on the ‘Compass’ will also be produced.
On Friday 25 March, the European Defence Agency (EDA) published its activity report for 2021: https://aeur.eu/f/10h (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)