Strasbourg, 09/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - This is a first for the European Parliament, said President Cox, a defence minister taking part in a debate over the EU's common security and defence policy. Spanish defence minister Federico Trillo-Figueroa, after noting the antecedents and principles governing the EU's CSDP (especially the principles of subsidiarity in the EU and complementarity in NATO) said that more Europe also means more common security and defence, which he saw as an essential requirement (respecting existing national structures).
The Spanish Presidency's priorities can be summarised as follows: a) Operational objectives. First of all, to fill gaps that can handicap the implementation of the Laeken operations statement - 17 workgroups are currently looking at the issue. As for transparency with regard to NATO, meetings had taken place with NATO officials, said Mr Trillo, saying that when it comes to preventing and managing crises, what was important was to make it clear that case-by-case solutions were not enough; b) Institutional objectives. Should a formal Defence Council be set up? Not to replace the General Affairs Council, but to "do our work" said Trillo, hailing the initiative of holding a first meeting of this nature under the aegis of the May General Affairs Council in Brussels; c) Creating a genuine European arms industry to serve the CSDP, rather than the other way around, and in the form of voluntary and transparent co-operation; d) raising public awareness about the importance of preventing crises and fighting terrorism. Trillo said that after September 11, it was becoming more important to know which laws apply to crisis situations, particularly in terms of human rights. He said the EU as such had the capacity to defend itself against arms of mass destruction and chemical and biological weapons.
Security and defence are not an intergovernmental, but a "hybrid" issue, said the President of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Elmar Brok (CDU) - if the EU can have a common currency, why can't it have common defence? And also a common arms policy, putting an end to the over-large gaps in industrial development. And the European Commission in all this? It has no direct role in military aspects of security policy, "but is closely involved in this policy as a whole" said Chris Patten, adding that "this is as it should be". The Commission is prepared to use the Treaty to set up a strong, viable arms industry (Chris Patten welcomed the Star 21 initiative that two MEPs, von Wogau and Westendorp, are involved in). Mr Patten concluded that the EU's capacity to intervene in the event of a crisis had to be improved without creating parallel structures and without forgetting that one was treading on dangerous ground here. President Bush has called for a 14% increase in the defence budget - what MEP thinks they can ask for something similar? General Morillon replied that he would call for greater defence spending (EUROPE will return to his response in more detail).
Commissioner Erkki Liikanen spoke about the action plan for drawing up an EU arms policy, saying that progress had been made on eleven of the fourteen points, and a review and update were on the cards. The Commission will report on this in July.
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