Traditionally as founding member of the EU and seat of many European institutions, Belgium is very active in the fields of Defence and Security. To have a good insight of Belgian intend during the next six months, the best is still to have a look at their program. This document is of course available in different languages on the Belgian government website. For French language, you can click here, for the other ones, including English, click here.
Well, in such a document, one should not expect that more space than strictly necessary be given to defence. There are so many topics to deal with, that defence cannot be more than one paragraph long.
The integral text of this paragraph is the following one: ‘ The implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon in terms of a Common Security and Defence policy will also require special attention. Notwithstanding the progress made in recent years, the European Union still does not possess the civil or military capacity to match its ambitions. Permanent Structured Cooperation as the European architecture for the planning and command of crisis operations, the capacity for rapid and coherent reaction, including for relief operations, civil- military cooperation, the training of civil and military personnel for crisis management, the strengthening of the European Defence Agency, and the strategic relationship between the Union and NATO are among the key themes requiring special attention’.
What can we say about it?
The analysis on European Defence is pretty short, but clear: despite the progress, the EU is far from having reached it optimum. However, Belgium does not seem believing in significant progress with this issue. The best they can do is to convey a ‘special attention’ to European Defence. In the past years, this country has always been at the avant-garde of ideas, propositions and negotiations. Currently, the topic is to be handled with so carefully, that, may be for the very first time, Belgium has nothing concrete in its propose.
Some could be tempted to put shame on the current electoral situation of Belgium and the difficulty to form a government. I do not think so. If the political visibility is not here, traditionally, high ranking officials take over and make projects go forward, waiting for the new governments to endorse the ideas and proposals made by their administration. In the particular case of Belgium and its consensus on the development of European Defence, this is for sure what would happen if there were some opportunities to make steps forward. But all the recent presidencies remained stuck in the sand, meeting huge difficulties to reach any agreement in key issues, like a permanent OHQ or the permanent structured cooperation, foreseen by the Treaty of Lisbon.
In the current situation, where all the attention of European countries is focused on the financial and budgetary crisis, a strong and long-term political effort cannot be expected. Therefore the only way to go forward would be a bottom up approach, leaving some freedom of action to the military, or more precisely to the Chiefs of Defence willingly to wake up some interest among their colleagues. However, governments will never allow technicians take such arrangements on their own as such issues belong undoubtedly to national sovereignty, some of European leaders still nourishing the utopia or national independence in Defence.
To conclude on Belgian presidency, looking at their level of ambition, nothing new and essential is to be expected in the current international context.
Showing posts with label Lisbon Treaty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lisbon Treaty. Show all posts
2010-05-14
UK, LibDems and Conservatives: the impossible agreement on European Defence.
After the coalition agreement signed by both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on 11th May, some analysts casted a shadow on the solidity of the new British government. I will now just have a look on their respective programs regarding European Defence. Just to have an idea if this process could develop despite the new government.
Frankly I would say now. Nothing at all will happen, and even to reproduce what de Gaulle said when the United Kingdom bought the Polaris missiles to the USA in the 60’s, the LibDems could still abandon their ideas for some governmental seats.
Firstly, let us read the conservative armed forces manifesto. For instance, the NATO “should remain the cornerstone of (…UK…) defence”. Moreover, they “will therefore examine resources currently spent on bureaucratic and wasteful EU defence initiatives”. Which is rather surprising, is that all those provisions are already included in the Lisbon Treaty. Precisely the article 42 mentions that “the policy of the Union in accordance with this Section shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States and shall respect the obligations of certain Member States, which see their common defence realised in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), under the North Atlantic Treaty and be compatible with the common security and defence policy established within that framework”. Indeed, a restrictive reading of the Lisbon Treaty is not so far from the conservative stance. From the very beginning the Treaty has foreseen such cases of a country not willing to take part. Regarding the “wasteful EU defence initiatives”, we can say all right: give back the jobs you have in EU Military Staff (including the boss), the HQ for Atalanta and that’s it, UK will be no more involved in those wasteful initiatives. But I really do not believe so.
However the compatibility with the LibDems is more questionable. In Autumn 2008, the LibDems were more audacious. Then, strongly supporting the ESDP in their conference paper, “Liberal Democrats see the potential for ESDP as encouraging more EU countries to play their part in European and wider international security “.
“Moreover, the ESDP also has the potential to reduce the costs of defence to the UK taxpayer, whilst maintaining our defence capabilities and improving the safety and welfare of our armed forces. This potential arises partly from the prospect of the European Defence Agency being able to reduce the costs of procurement and improve inter-operability”. While on their side the Conservatives think, that “matters of enormous national sensitivity, such as defence procurement are better dealt through inter-governmental bilateral and multilateral negotiations, than through supranational institutions” like European Defence Agency.
Finally, what is the synthesis of those diverging views? For the time being: zero, nada, nichts. Their coalition agreement will be completed later on by a final agreement covering defence…
Such different views will not allow the UK to be a driving country as for European Defence refers. Therefore countries like France, which are more active in the issue will have to choose:
-Either the UK, which will remain at least very passive, although its defence policy and organization, with nuclear deterrence and expeditionary warfare knowhow is rather close from French one,
-Or, Germany, which is opposed to nuclear weapons and is in favour of a European Army, which do not match, but quite not the French views.
I will not be very optimistic on the capabilities of those three major countries to find an agreement on the issue.
Frankly I would say now. Nothing at all will happen, and even to reproduce what de Gaulle said when the United Kingdom bought the Polaris missiles to the USA in the 60’s, the LibDems could still abandon their ideas for some governmental seats.
Firstly, let us read the conservative armed forces manifesto. For instance, the NATO “should remain the cornerstone of (…UK…) defence”. Moreover, they “will therefore examine resources currently spent on bureaucratic and wasteful EU defence initiatives”. Which is rather surprising, is that all those provisions are already included in the Lisbon Treaty. Precisely the article 42 mentions that “the policy of the Union in accordance with this Section shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States and shall respect the obligations of certain Member States, which see their common defence realised in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), under the North Atlantic Treaty and be compatible with the common security and defence policy established within that framework”. Indeed, a restrictive reading of the Lisbon Treaty is not so far from the conservative stance. From the very beginning the Treaty has foreseen such cases of a country not willing to take part. Regarding the “wasteful EU defence initiatives”, we can say all right: give back the jobs you have in EU Military Staff (including the boss), the HQ for Atalanta and that’s it, UK will be no more involved in those wasteful initiatives. But I really do not believe so.
However the compatibility with the LibDems is more questionable. In Autumn 2008, the LibDems were more audacious. Then, strongly supporting the ESDP in their conference paper, “Liberal Democrats see the potential for ESDP as encouraging more EU countries to play their part in European and wider international security “.
“Moreover, the ESDP also has the potential to reduce the costs of defence to the UK taxpayer, whilst maintaining our defence capabilities and improving the safety and welfare of our armed forces. This potential arises partly from the prospect of the European Defence Agency being able to reduce the costs of procurement and improve inter-operability”. While on their side the Conservatives think, that “matters of enormous national sensitivity, such as defence procurement are better dealt through inter-governmental bilateral and multilateral negotiations, than through supranational institutions” like European Defence Agency.
Finally, what is the synthesis of those diverging views? For the time being: zero, nada, nichts. Their coalition agreement will be completed later on by a final agreement covering defence…
Such different views will not allow the UK to be a driving country as for European Defence refers. Therefore countries like France, which are more active in the issue will have to choose:
-Either the UK, which will remain at least very passive, although its defence policy and organization, with nuclear deterrence and expeditionary warfare knowhow is rather close from French one,
-Or, Germany, which is opposed to nuclear weapons and is in favour of a European Army, which do not match, but quite not the French views.
I will not be very optimistic on the capabilities of those three major countries to find an agreement on the issue.
2010-05-05
It’s a long way to an EU operational headquarters
The main reference of this post will be fact sheet published by the Real Instituto Elcano (here), which has published on 23 March 2010 a paper written by Luis Simon, dealing with the EU operational headquarters. The paper can be found in Spanish on the Institute website. I really liked reading it, as it gives a good insight of the whole planning process, even if it does not deal with the issues of parallel planning, which permit to compress significantly the time needed for preparing an operation.
Like many other people more or less involved in European Defence, I think that this operational headquarters will be needed. Therefore, I am really happy seeing Luis Simon supporting the idea. However Mr Simon is realistic, when saying that neither Germany nor the UK ever supported the idea. As for the UK refers, nothing new. The fight against this supposed duplication between the NATO and the EU is an ancient issue, when everybody knows that the real duplication lies within the NATO itself. Germany could be more surprising. I am not. The best expression I could read is “destructive ambiguity” (‘ambigüedad destructive). L. Simon attributes this German ambiguity to their civilian perception of operations, in which they reject a pure military approach.
May be, this explanation is to simple, as the Germans do not reject, and in contrary fully support the NATO purely military headquarters. I would rather think that of course the Germans have expressed at this occasion some of their belief that being a nice and peaceful country would be enough to ban war and solve conflicts. One could think as well that the German intend was to copy in the EU their perception of operations (vernetzte Sicherheit) and therefore take an informal leadership, supported by their civilian experience in conflicts, knowing they would not be able to challenge countries like France or the UK on the expeditionary warfare, on which both are much more experienced than the Bundeswehr. In Afghanistan, when the Germans built up the Provincial Reconstruction Team Kunduz, they applied this integrated civ-mil way of operating while France and the UK were still on more conventional schemes.
Therefore I prefer thinking that they tried to capitalize on their know how (here for more info on PRT Kunduz), instead of being exclusively angelic.
Anyway, L. Simon assesses clearly and rightly that ‘the current planning system and the command and control of CFSP military operations do not fill the minimum quality standards’. Any operation supposed to deploy in a short time need several planning layers working in parallel. The fact is that the current structure in place in Brussels does not permit developing this modus operandi, as something is missing between the strategic (political) and tactical (military technical) levels. The recourse to national operational headquarters is not satisfactory in a EU context, as suspicion of national hidden agendas will always prevail. Furthermore, putting a national operational headquarters at disposal of the EU implies that you declare yourself ready. Who can still imagine that the German operational command in Potsdam could command and control a deployment in Africa, when one see what has happened for Chad, where Germany was politically supporting the operation and militarily refusing it?
Therefore military credibility needs a minimum of assets guaranteeing the possibility to deploy. In that field M. Simon is totally right. Nonetheless, when he proposes the EU situation centre in Brussels to be designated as the ‘preferred HQ’ for CFSP operations, I do not believe it realistic, at least yet, at least as long as every European country thinks that power and influence lie by their capacity to control an EU operation via their national operational headquarters.
Like many other people more or less involved in European Defence, I think that this operational headquarters will be needed. Therefore, I am really happy seeing Luis Simon supporting the idea. However Mr Simon is realistic, when saying that neither Germany nor the UK ever supported the idea. As for the UK refers, nothing new. The fight against this supposed duplication between the NATO and the EU is an ancient issue, when everybody knows that the real duplication lies within the NATO itself. Germany could be more surprising. I am not. The best expression I could read is “destructive ambiguity” (‘ambigüedad destructive). L. Simon attributes this German ambiguity to their civilian perception of operations, in which they reject a pure military approach.
May be, this explanation is to simple, as the Germans do not reject, and in contrary fully support the NATO purely military headquarters. I would rather think that of course the Germans have expressed at this occasion some of their belief that being a nice and peaceful country would be enough to ban war and solve conflicts. One could think as well that the German intend was to copy in the EU their perception of operations (vernetzte Sicherheit) and therefore take an informal leadership, supported by their civilian experience in conflicts, knowing they would not be able to challenge countries like France or the UK on the expeditionary warfare, on which both are much more experienced than the Bundeswehr. In Afghanistan, when the Germans built up the Provincial Reconstruction Team Kunduz, they applied this integrated civ-mil way of operating while France and the UK were still on more conventional schemes.
Therefore I prefer thinking that they tried to capitalize on their know how (here for more info on PRT Kunduz), instead of being exclusively angelic.
Anyway, L. Simon assesses clearly and rightly that ‘the current planning system and the command and control of CFSP military operations do not fill the minimum quality standards’. Any operation supposed to deploy in a short time need several planning layers working in parallel. The fact is that the current structure in place in Brussels does not permit developing this modus operandi, as something is missing between the strategic (political) and tactical (military technical) levels. The recourse to national operational headquarters is not satisfactory in a EU context, as suspicion of national hidden agendas will always prevail. Furthermore, putting a national operational headquarters at disposal of the EU implies that you declare yourself ready. Who can still imagine that the German operational command in Potsdam could command and control a deployment in Africa, when one see what has happened for Chad, where Germany was politically supporting the operation and militarily refusing it?
Therefore military credibility needs a minimum of assets guaranteeing the possibility to deploy. In that field M. Simon is totally right. Nonetheless, when he proposes the EU situation centre in Brussels to be designated as the ‘preferred HQ’ for CFSP operations, I do not believe it realistic, at least yet, at least as long as every European country thinks that power and influence lie by their capacity to control an EU operation via their national operational headquarters.
2010-04-02
Western European Union coming to its end. Was it really opportune?
On 31st March O. Kempf, wrote on his blog (here), that the WEU was coming to its end.
Of course, the author expressed his strong regrets and in his analysis assessed that this decision was not totally opportune.
I fully support his assessment, firstly because he is very competent in all geopolitical issues, secondly because the press statements of WEU member nations do not match.
As a first approach I do not see this as a major decision of our governments: most of the WEU had been already since a while handed over to the EU Council, as the Secretary General of the EU was double hatted SecGen of the WEU. Torrejon is the best example of this transfer of authority. The only remains of the WEU was the parliamentary assembly, renamed lately ESDA.
France and its partners have decided to withdraw from the WEU as a consequence of the Lisbon Treaty and the progress of the European construction, as the EU has taken over all the functions of WEU.
The German federal cabinet has decided to withdraw from the WEU. Continuing with the WEU would create duplication with the EU structures. Dissolving the WEU means that the place to discuss about European security is the EU.
Firstly Spain speaks on behalf of all the contracting parties.
NATO and the Lisbon Treaty are the basis for collective defence. Spain will make sure that the discussions between the national Parliaments will go on, based on the protocol n°1 of the Lisbon Treaty.
The WEU role was essentially symbolic referring to collective defence. The current work of the parliamentary assembly is not the cost of 2 millions Euros a year for UK alone worth. And the most important: “Given the inter-governmental nature of CSDP, we believe, however, that this remains fundamentally a matter for national parliaments. There is no reason and no case for the European Parliament to expand its competence in this area”.
An easy conclusion is that Germany has a very federalist approach, while the UK relies on the inter-governmental relations, agreeing with Spain, only on the role of the NATO, while France and Germany simply ignore it.
Obviously the role of forum that the Parliamentary Assembly of the WEU was playing was not that stupid, as it could help our nations getting a common approach on defence matters. Indeed, for the time being, the European Parliament, in accordance with the Lisbon Treaty plays no role in the issue as Defence and its budgets (of course) remain purely in the national field of competence.
Therefore, I join O. Kempf: we know what we loose, not what we gain. Having met Robert Walter several times, I really think that he will strive maintaining an inter-governmental parliamentary structure. Isn’t he a UK –conservative member of the House of Commons? In any case, the UK will never (at least in the next decade) support the German federalist approach.
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