Nice, 08/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Council in Nice included, in its conclusions on all the themes discussed except institutional reform, a passage on Common European Security and Defence policy (ESDP), which keeps itself to two paragraphs, and which is thus clearly shorter that the draft initially presented by the Presidency (nearly two pages).
The French Minister for European Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, explained on Friday to the press that the Heads of State and Government had chosen a "extremely simple option, simplified to the extreme", in deciding to approve the report on ESDP adopted by the General Affairs Council "rather than to comment on it". The full adoption of this report confirms all the advances achieved in this domain since the (Franco-British) summit in Saint-Malo, asserted Mr Moscovici, who added: we have simplified the conclusions notably on request from the British Prime Minister, as the initial text "extended the report by the General Affairs Council without bringing new elements, and was more a source of controversy". The British delegation was "pretty demanding" on this issue, and we preferred to take it into account, as it was "simpler that working towards an amendment" to this text and because it avoids "semantic quarrels that are sometime counterproductive".
The text as it is (and which we will publish in full with the Summit Conclusion) works hard to indicate that the aim is that the EU be rapidly operation in this field, and that a decision to this effect will be taken by the European Council as soon as possible during 2001 and at the latest, for the European Council in Laeken (in December, under the Belgian Presidency). The Swedish Presidency will present a report on these issues to the Gothenburg summit in June 2001.
Among the passages erased from the initial text, there is an assertion that the European Union will have an "autonomous capability" to take decisions and launch and conduct crisis management operations there where NATO is not engaged as such, and another indicating that effective decision-making mechanisms will enable the EU to manage, under the authority of the Council, international crises, "mainly global". The draft text asserts that two fundamental criteria guide the EU in this effort, "credibility and decision-making autonomy". Other points, on the other hand, insisting on the opening of the European Union towards the candidate countries and the NATO allies that are not members of the EU, which would be consulted and associated in the widest manner possible over actions undertaken by the EU, and over the "close and confident" relations that the EU wants to develop with the Atlantic Alliance, which "remains the foundation of it members collective defences".
At his press conference Friday afternoon, asked whether he was "100% happy" with the conclusions relating to the Europe of defence, even if the reference to the EU's "autonomy" no longer appeared, Jacques Chirac said: "Yes", especially as it was a "tour de force" achieving such an outcome, if one remembered that France, two years ago, was "totally isolated" on these issues. Since then, "We have agreed with our British friends. There was Saint-Malo, and these developments are in perfect harmony with the Atlantic Alliance", said the French President. NATO remains the foundation of the allied collective defence, and the European defence identity is a "complement" for the "Alliance", and "does not weaken it", Jacques Chirac repeated. What is important, he said, is that the European Union is "capable of managing crises when its own interests are at stake", and, to do so, needs an operational capability, civilian and military.