Paris, 08/02/2006 (Agence Europe) - European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) has made headway since it was first launched but, alongside the well-known shortfalls such as lack of means, it has to come to grips with new challenges including the need to define a global strategy for better use of its civil and military instruments, and NATO's repositioning in the new global context. This is the main conclusion of the seminar on the “Future of ESDP”, organised in Paris on 6 February by the European Union's Institute for Security Studies (EUISS). In her introductory speech, EUISS Director Nicole Gnesotto said “diplomacy will become fundamental” for managing crises like that in Iran even though, in this specific instance, “neither the Americans, nor the Europeans have the solution. How can ESDP be strengthened given the fact that crises require management that is less and less military but when NATO is “pinching the EU's prerogatives” - that was one of the questions asked during the seminar.
The ESDP needs a global strategy to know “how to use its military means” and coordinate them with its civilian means, Stefano Sivestri, President of the Istituto Affair Internazionali in Rome, said. He considers the EU should also settle its institutional problems as the “lack of a powerful foreign minister (…) will inevitably entail slower ESDP development”. The EU must face up to internal resistance regarding the use of the tools it currently has at its disposal. In the case of possibly sending an EU mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for example, the “modalities for planning” the mission are a theme for debate within the EU, an EU senior official explained. As one can clearly see, “it is not a question of structure but a political question”, the official added.
Stressing that the European Commission and the ESDP civil chapter sometimes have the same instruments, Catriona Gourlay of the United Nations Institute for Research on Disarmament, called on the EU to “put some order into all that” in order to have “greater consistency and less duplication”. It must also improve its cooperation between civil and military tools. “In most places where it acts, it (the Commission) does so in a decentralised fashion”, she said. Also, the EU Council may ensure direct follow-up and, possibly, put pressure on third countries to attain its objectives, a senior EU official said to justify the functioning of the civilian aspect of ESDP, while recognising the need to improve cooperation and consistency of EU civil and military tools.
Money is the sinews of war. And money is something that the ESDP is cruelly lacking. From EUR 47.5 million in 2003, it went to around 102 million in 2006. This is all very well but insufficient as, despite the increase, “in general, by the middle of the year there is nothing left”, explained Philippe De Schoutheete, former Permanent Representative with the EU, from the Belgian Royal Institute for International Relations. Although the EU's High Representative for CFSP, Javier Solana, estimated needs for 2006 at EUR 120 million (without counting possible EU missions to Kosovo and in DRC), this is “peanuts when you look at the role the EU is supposed to play in the international arena”, Antonio Missioroli of the European Policy Centre said, adding that, according to diplomatic sources, the mission that the EU may send to Kosovo could alone cost up to EUR 40-50 million per year. More money is fine but it is also necessary to strengthen parliamentary control, said MEP Karl von Wogau (EPP-ED), Chairman of the European Parliament's Sub-Committee on Security and Defence.