Brussels, 20/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - As announced in yesterday's EUROPE, p.8, the reports from the panels working on the shortfalls of EU military capabilities in the context of the European Capabilities Action Plan (ECAP) will be presented on 1 March 2003. While welcoming the progress made, Javier Solana, EU High Representative for CFSP, stressed that there were some shortfalls such as the lack of a transparent overall picture of the state of play in the various panels, and the fact that there are no significant increases in European national defence budgets. Mr Solana made a number of recommendations on: (1) active involvement of Defence Ministers in ECAP; (2) a better and more detailed assessment of the work in the various panels in order to have an effective mechanism to monitor progress around a realistic calendar; (3) realistic proposals from panels (in the short, medium and long term) taking into account the resources constraints of all Member States; and (4) qualitative improvements mainly though better use of available capabilities and special attention to interoperability, especially in the framework of multinational solutions.
For the past seven months, 19 panels have been examining 24 significant shortfalls in EU military capabilities out of the 42 identified. Thanks to the help of experts, short and medium term solutions are gradually being envisaged in order to temporarily fill these gaps before financial means become available to allow long-term solutions to be implemented. The first results of the panels based on the Helsinki conclusions are as follows:
- Attack helicopters and support helicopters: Member States are contributing with up to two attack helicopter battalions out of the three required. The long term solution would be to call on Member States to step up their contribution so that more are procured. A short term solution (such as support helicopters) would be to modify the existing helicopters or resort to pooling.
- Nuclear, biological and chemical panel (NBC): This panel is to detect chemical, biological and nuclear threats and find solutions to protect troops against such threats. The Member States have been very receptive (three meetings have already been held and a fourth is scheduled for January 2003 in Greece) and offers of mobile NBC laboratories and experts have been made.
- Special Operations Forces: These are troops that are rapidly deployable for extreme situations. Member States would be able to make additional contributions to fill the gaps by end 2003 or even earlier. The next meeting will be held in February 2003.
- Suppression of Enemy Aid Defence (SEAD): The aim is to guarantee freedom of action of EU air forces during an offensive mission. The destruction of radar or of a ground-air site is no longer enough and so air defence systems must be integrated. The off-the-shelf procurement (purchase on civilian market) of scrambling and destructive munitions in any climatic conditions are short term solutions. In the long term, a common definition of the concepts of location, identification, neutralisation and destruction is needed to finalise an appropriate procurement policy.
- Air-to-air refuelling panel: Additional national contributions would be possible end 2003. In the medium (2003-2012) and long term (after 2012), solutions would involve the conversion of existing assets (such as the use and processing of aircraft from airlines) or leasing.
- Cruise missiles and precision-guided missiles (PGMs): These weapons are used by aircraft and by ships. For cruise missiles, European capabilities should significantly increase end 2003, reaching the capabilities target in 2006. Regarding precision-guided missiles, the panels reflect on how to make weapons commissioned by the Member States interoperable.
- Mobile information and communications systems: Member States' offers will not be sufficient. It will therefore be necessary to envisage, on one hand, the purchase of new material and, on the other, the EU must reflect on how to organise communication systems (circulation of information on how the land lies, in Brussels).
- Collection of strategic intelligence on the basis of images: The panel focused its work on access to images from observation satellites. The procurement of this capability may be envisaged in the short term by increasing the EU's access to existing imagery intelligence sources of commercial, military or Member State origin (2005); in the medium term; by negotiating access to the future military observation system (2005-2007); from 2007-2012 by developing common programmes for the next generation of observation satellites.
- Drones, high and medium altitude, long endurance (Hale-Male UAVs): Projects on unmanned aircraft are being launched but, as these are very costly, full capacity cannot be envisaged until 2010. In the short term, off-the-shelf procurement may be foreseen.
Other panels are studying: (1) carrier based air power; (2) ballistic defence missiles; and (3) large air and maritime carriers.