Paris, 03/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - At a summer school in Paris on Wednesday 2 July 2008, members of the EPP-ED group and other speakers were able to make a detailed overview of progress and shortcomings in the European security and defence policy (ESDP).
The president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pottering, pointed out that from 1984-1989 he had chaired the EP's arms sub-committee and back then people used to make fun of the committee, saying that defence had nothing to do with the European Community. He said the committee had refused to be intimidated, wanting a strong Europe with a foreign policy and also a security and arms policy. Pottering said that these days, the committee is criticised for not making enough progress! He noted that when one talks about defence and security issues, nobody is forced to follow, and if Ireland wants to remain neutral it is perfectly possible for it to do so. Despite all the progress made, which he described as laudable, Pottering said it should be remembered that today's ESDP is at a crossroads, with action capacities rather limited due to restricted military capacity and financial resources. In 2007, the EU spent a third of the United States' military budget. Pottering recommended that an internal market in defence goods be developed and a military Erasmus programme be established with similar training standards.
Following his tour of European capitals, French Defence Minister Hervé Morin said that he was delighted that there was genuine consensus on the desire to give new impetus to a 'defence Europe'. He went on by listing the French Presidency's main priorities.
Defence strategy. Renovating the EU security strategy must not be simply an intellectual exercise - it should also reflect on military capacity to be developed.
Military capability. EU military capability should be improved in a number of respects: - launching post-Helios observation and surveillance satellites (a programme of interest to six countries); - acquiring a common A400M fleet of military transport planes along the lines of NATO's C17 fleet;- trying to move towards an air and naval group comprising several navies.
EU defence agency. France wants new impetus to be given to the EU's defence agency and Morin noted the imperative of pooling EU research efforts to catch up with the United States, which spends six times more on research than the EU. In a number of military research programmes (heavy helicopters, protection of military personnel and radio software), Morin hopes to launch important research programmes.
Getting EU awareness to evolve. The French Presidency hopes to advance on one issue, military Erasmus (allowing officers and budding officers of EU armies to follow common training courses or carry out some of their training in the military academies of other countries in Europe).
Something tangible for European citizens. France is suggesting two things. Firstly, introducing an evacuation plan for EU citizens caught up in political or other crises in Africa or Asia. Secondly, creating a real time surveillance network along EU coastlines to combat smuggling, illegal immigration or other dangers.
The French Presidency says that the way forces are organised needs to be tidied up. The idea is to create procedures to get EU countries to make more rapid or more habitual use of underused battlegroups: Eurocorps, the German and Polish brigade, the Franco-German brigade, the British and Dutch amphibian group, Euromarforce and so on. He advised people to visit the EU military headquarters in Strasbourg, where he said they would see an exemplary waste of resources because the 800-1000 soldiers in the EU force are virtually never called upon for duty. Real progress has to be made, added Morin, on the need to have an EU command and planning centre (not competing with NATO) of several dozen men in order to have the skills to allow the EU to carry out military operations very swiftly.
Morin explained that France's decision to be involved in renovation of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) would enable even faster progress to be made in building a defence Europe.
Christian Schmidt, a parliamentary secretary of state at Germany's Defence Ministry, regretted that the structured cooperation system was no longer immediately available due to Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. He said that the security and defence policy was a success and Germany wanted to consolidate it. Schmidt stressed the importance of resources to implement the 2003 defence strategy, saying that he was delighted at France's return to NATO's military structure, because it would make it possible to further extend cooperation between the EU and NATO. He said Germany would do all it could to strengthen the existing complementarity between the EU and NATO. Schmidt recommended improving cooperation between the EU and NATO, notably in Afghanistan, and regretted the absence of cooperation among EU countries on weapons. He said more capability should be developed at EU level in terms of heavy transport helicopters and surveillance drones, and defending the utility of the Franco-German brigade that enabled soldiers to be integrated and that served as an incentive for political integration.
Claude-France Arnould, the director of defence issues at the Secretariat General of the Council of the EU, said that EU operations and missions in the military and civilian domains were a 'success'. She stressed the complexity of EU missions (coordination problems between the command structures of the EU and the United Nations and of the EU and NATO, sticking to the EU's mandate, respecting government authority and respecting EU values). She said EU operations had to benefit from all aspects of coherence. For example, in the operations in Chad, there was a desire to act with the Commission, she said, arguing that the more the Commission has the right to be interested in very tangible projects, including vis-à-vis equipment and infrastructure, the more there would immediately be tangible action that would ensure convergence between CFDP and EU instruments in specific theatres.
Pieter Feith, the EU's special representative in Kosovo, said that the EULEX mission in Kosovo would be given executive powers in terms of justice and the police, which would be a first in missions under the CFDP. He added that the EU had to be capable of deploying effective military missions and making use of force if the situation requires it. Intervention under the second pillar of the CFDP should be as short-lived as possible and respond to highly specific, short-term issues with the aim of establishing the conditions to allow the European Commission to work into the long-term and make best use of the various instruments at its disposal in agreement with local authorities, added Feith
The director general of the EU Military Staff (EUMS), General David Leakey, made a positive first assessment of the EU's mission in Chad and the Central African Republic (EUFOR Chad/CAR) due in part to experience gleaned on previous missions in the Congo, namely - more staff have been earmarked for planning; - it had taken time to set up the Mont-Valérien headquarters but it was “working very well”; - the generation of forces had been difficult because of political problems among various member states which did not want to be involved (problems finding helicopters and doctors) rather than military problems as such, but these problems had been ironed out. EU member states can be proud of the capabilities, added General Leakey. EUFOR Chad/CAR Commander Jean-Philippe Ganascia expressed astonishment at the degree to which small contingents like the Irish, the Austrians, the Finns and the Poles had demonstrated the desire and courage to live in very austere conditions. In addition, they had demonstrated that they were not a burden on the French in any way (the French are the logistical backbone).
General Yves de Kermabon explained that the objective of the EULEX Kosovo mission he heads is to help the authorities in Kosovo by monitoring, managing and advising them in the rule of law (police, justice, customs and prisons) with the particularity of having executive powers. He said the mission's main challenges were: - technical (coordination problems with NATO); - operational (protection of personnel in the field and the integrated nature of the mission); political (the problem of deploying a mission over all of Kosovo, particularly the northern part); and ethical (he said the mission provided local institutions with EU values and expertise but EU officials had to learn 'Kosovo').
Since 2006 Brigadier-General Vincenzo Coppola has been at the helm of the EU's police mission in Bosnia Herzegovina (EUPM) and will remain in the post until the end of 2008. On 1 January 2003, EUPM took over from the United Nations International Police Force. Vincenzo Coppola did not mince his words, saying that the EU was still paying the price of problems with the United Nations mission that went before, although the two missions' mandates were very different. He regretted the three changes in the EUPM's mandate and said the lessons to be learned from EUPM were the need for an integrated approach, a realistic mandate and appropriate tools in the field. He said he did not have the capabilities needed to carry out his mandate. He said his mission had been working on police reform in Bosnia Herzegovina for three years without any involvement from the local authorities which had not had their say. Coppola said this was the “sad reality” because there was no political consensus in the field to back reform of the police, concluding that it would be better to revise down ambitions rather than fail in the task, as was the case now in Bosnia. (L.C./transl.fl)