Brussels, 10/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - "We have done as much as we did in 10 years", said Hervé Morin in Brussels on Monday 10 November, closing the session on Defence of the "Jumbo" Council (External Affairs Council extended to Defence and Development). According to the French Defence Minister, the decisions taken at the European Defence Agency (EDA) show that "the Europeans are capable of drawing conclusions from an industrial decision". In earlier that morning, the executive director of the Agency, Alexander Weis, commented that this session of the Council "has, for the first time (...), succeeded in transforming words into action". Speaking to the press, Mr Morin also repeated the fact that the French Presidency hoped to reach an agreement on the Defence package proposed by the European Commission.
The Defence Ministers gave their green light to a series of programmes aiming to reinforce military and civil capabilities in Europe, both at the level of defence equipment (development, joint acquisitions and modernisation) and on consolidating the structures of the ESDP (training and planning). The defence ministers approved the 2009 budget for the EDA (22 million EUR for its running expenses and 8 million for its operational budget) and approved a raft of programmes on maritime surveillance (drones and ways of combating sea mines), aero-mobility (confirmation of the pilot training programme) strategic transport (declaration on pooling strategic transport resources) and research and technology (signature of the second joint investment programme of 15.5 million EUR). The Council also decided to commit to work on harmonising rules on military aviation navigability and gave its blessing to the launch of an exchange programme between young officers, to be based on the Erasmus model.
The Council is signatory to the Headline Goal for 2010, which aims to improve EU civil mission capacity. Defence ministers are committed to reinforcing, next year, simultaneous planning and deployment capabilities for several EU missions. A model adapted to rapid reaction situations and based on the modalities for rapid deployment of missions in Georgia, Rafah and Aceh, is expected to be adopted to help meet this objective and integrate military resources into civil operations planning. Ministers also made a commitment to: improving the training of personnel likely to be deployed in EU civil missions and to continue the strengthening of civil intervention teams; improve crisis management structural capability by providing it with administrative, financial, logistic support, also for human resources; development of national strategies to facilitate the deployment of personnel, enhance coherence between ESPD missions and other European Union institutions and to develop synergies with other actors, international organisations and civil society organisations. The Jumbo Council of November 2009 is expected to assess progress in this domain.
Defence ministers spent a lot of their dinner in talks involving the legal aspects of the ATALANTA operation, launched by the Council the same morning, in view of fighting piracy off the Somali coast (see other article). Speaking at the press conference closing the Council, Mr Morin explained that, “8-10 countries” could take part in this operation. Seven countries (France, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, United Kingdom and Greece) have already expressed their intention to contribute to this operation, which will be commanded by British vice admiral Philip Jones from the Northwood HQ. The process for developing forces has begun. The HQ for the force will be based on one of the ships, indicated the minister.
The Council also ratified a declaration on cooperation between the European Defence Agency and the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR) to research, on a voluntary basis, greater synergy between the two institutions and identifying OCCAR as a privileged AED partner. It has approved the creation of “experts' think-tank” for reforming the security sector. This network will help set up expert teams appropriately and deployed in European missions to support and assist in reform of the security sector in EU partner countries. A stage's point in the setting up of this think-tank is expected to be submitted to member states at the beginning of 2009. (A.By. /trans/rh)