Brussels, 22/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - Wednesday's debate organised by the Assembly of the Western European Union (WEU) at premises belonging to the Belgian Senate focused on the theme of “From Collective to Common Defence? European Security and Defence in an Era of Terrorism”and highlighted the need for the European Union to strengthen its crisis prevention capability. Several speakers made contributions to the debate, including the Director General for External and Politico-Military Affairs at the European Union Council, Robert Cooper, and NATO Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Günter Altenburg.
Retracing the changes in the world since 1954 when the WEU Assembly was created, up to 2004, Robert Cooper highlighted the main principles of the European security strategy: new threats in the 21 century - in pride of place - terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the need to respond to these threats in a “collective” way by employing all available means (political, economic, social and as a last resort, military). In this context, Cooper explained that “European cooperation is the most important”. The NATO Deputy Secretary General spoke about the different partnerships underpinned by the Alliance and which helped assure global security. Partnerships include the one with the European Union “which provides the most potential for creating a strategic environment”. In this context, the ambassador insisted on the importance of increased cooperation between the EU and NATO to improve military capability, while “avoiding duplication”, and to ensure the complementary nature of relations between the NATO Rapid Response Force (RRF) and the EU's “battle groups”. Mr Altenburg was also convinced that the two organisations should cooperate “more closely” with regard to weapons, as soon as the European Defence Agency is operational.
During the debate, several speakers highlighted the need for greater crisis prevention. German social democrat (SPD) Christina Lucyga explained that on too many occasions, “there was no awareness of what was happening except for when the media spoke about it”. Mike Hancock (British Liberal) said that he was not happy with the slide from “prevention to preventive actions”. He described US intervention in Iraq as a telling example of this and which also gave this kind of action a “bad reputation”. He also asked for the EU strategy on prevention to avoid pre-emptive strikes. Mr Cooper said that prevention was the best they could get and recognised the need to increase the EU's civilian capability. According to Cooper, the EU's greatest success has been in Macedonia where, “ we have succeeded in preventing a civil war before it began”. He added, however, that it was “extremely difficult to get a government to agree to foreign intervention on its territory in advance”. In reply to Mr Hancock, who was anxious to avoid possible pre-emptive strikes from the EU, Mr Cooper explained that the zeal of the EU was nothing to be afraid of in this sphere and on the contrary, the possibility of getting an agreement from the 25 (to carry out pre-emptive strikes) was very limited and they therefore had nothing to be afraid of from the EU. Mr Cooper said that it would be more likely to be the “inaction of the EU in certain cases”, which would be a source of concern.
British Liberal Democrat Lord Russell Johnston criticised the EU's recent decision to lift the embargo on weapons sales to Libya. He denounced the fact that as soon as Libya had begun to behave better, the first reaction of the EU was to sell the country arms. He added that this was not the best of solutions. Mr Cooper reassured him that this did not mean there would be massive arms sales to Libya and pointed out that the EU had a code of conduct on arms exports. The application of this EU code of conduct is not binding and has been criticised by non-governmental organisations and MEPs on more than one occasion (see Atlantic News 30 September p 2 and 18 May p 4).a).