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Towards a Real EU Comprehensive Strategy to International Security, by Arnaud Danjean (MEP)
The “need for Europe” has probably never been as demanding as it is nowadays : with emerging new global threats (terrorism, cyber-criminality, nuclear proliferation, piracy, trafficking, etc.) and persisting regional crises (mainly in Africa and the Middle East), European citizens first but also other global actors are expecting Europe to take responsibility and use its considerable potential to spread stability and security. At the same time, this growing demand is colliding with an unprecedented and lasting constraint on the budgets and capacities of all European states, making it almost impossible for any of them to address efficiently and comprehensively these security issues alone. It is therefore necessary and unavoidable that the EU moves towards a greater strategic autonomy, based on a greater integration in these sensitive fields. There is no other realistic way for Europe to face the challenges, defend its interest and promote its values.
In the security and defence areas, progress in Europe has so far always come from failures and emergency situations. It was particularly the case in the 1990's when Europe tragically failed to cope with the break-out of conflicts in former Yugoslavia and had to rely on a late US/NATO-led military intervention to end the hostilities, both in Bosnia and in Kosovo. This trauma of having been dragged reluctantly and without any real power to change the course of history into conflicts on its own continent has somehow inspired the launching of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) at the end of the 1990's. All the institutional, operational and conceptual achievements throughout the last ten years were made thanks to a strong political will to face the challenges and the erupting crises, be it in the Balkans (Macedonia, Kosovo) in Africa (Congo, Chad, etc.) or in the Caucasus (Georgia). Given the tremendous challenges ahead, rising notably from the current revolution movements in the Arab world, one can legitimately expect the EU to assert its international role, being one of the rare actors potentially able to implement the famous comprehensive approach, combining a wide range of tools in all areas (economy, trade, humanitarian and civilian assistance, diplomacy and ultimately military force) with a strong legitimacy to act in a multilateral framework.
Achieving coherence of EU external action
The entry in force of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009, with the creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS) headed by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the Commission, marks a new era for the ambition of the EU's international role.
This great asset is still in a transitional phase of implementation. The focus put over the last year on inter-institutional arrangements between the different European centres of power highlighted how difficult it was to make security and defence a full dimension of the EU’s external action. Crisis management mechanisms that had been patiently put together over the last ten years and which proved useful and successful were too often considered marginal and optional, not essential to a credible foreign policy. To ensure a truly comprehensive approach to crisis and foreign policy, diplomacy, development and financial aid are not enough. As shown by the Libyan crisis, all these tools can prove useless if not backed at certain stage by the potential use of robust civilian-military instruments, starting with planning capacities up to, when needed, military capacities. If the EU has the ambition to go beyond a "super NGO" role on the international stage, it has to pay the relevant attention to its defence capacities.
Comprehensive security via civil-military cooperation in crisis management Civil-military cooperation is the key to achieve a real comprehensive approach.
This implies first that both dimensions and instruments related are considered equally valid and are given comparable attention. So far, the lack of a strong political will on the part of the Member States for the building of a more ambitious common project in the field of defence, seen as the ultimate prerogative of national sovereignty, continues to have significant consequences and does not foster better civil-military cooperation. It is obvious that the diversity, not to say the profound heterogeneity, of the 27 Member States’ material and budgetary capabilities, histories and traditions, rules and doctrines also constitutes a reality that can easily impede the development of European defence policy.
None of the new challenges (institutional, operational, capabilities) against which the EU had to measure its new ambitions witnessed any significant progress since the new treaty. This disappointing condition must of course be considered in the wider context of the unprecedented financial and budgetary crisis experienced by all EU States, which legitimately disrupted all priorities. However, it is now time for the Member States and the High Representative to take initiative in an area where expectations are high. And the new situation in Northern Africa is the first Towards a Real EU Comprehensive Strategy to International Security test case of the EU's credibility after having established the new institutional context.
The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) is still a crisis management policy with a rather strict separation of civil and military assets. Synergies should however increasingly be sought in the field of operations or capability development.
The most recent operations demonstrated this need: the military operation Atlanta off the coasts of Somalia will prove valuable only if a strong civilian backing for the judicial treatment of pirates as well as a long-term solution to increase maritime surveillance capabilities in the Horn of Africa is taking place. The challenges ahead in North Africa and the Sahel region will also require approaches combining civil and military assets.
The current situation in North Africa is a clear plea for a real European strategic autonomy. In Libya, any response needs to take into account various aspects: evacuation of foreign nationals, humanitarian assistance, control of migratory flows, effective implementation of the arms embargo via military means and a longer term strategy encompassing security and development aspects. The EU is the only legitimate actor capable of mobilising all these resources. The political context is extremely sensitive and any US (and therefore NATO) intervention could trigger perverse effects. Legitimacy matters, as well as perception by local actors and international partners. EU has probably a leading role to play in this region that is so
close geographically, historically and culturally. The EU has to show that it can cope with the crisis affecting its neighbourhood. It would be politically devastating for Europe, after the Balkan crisis of the 1990 s, to be seen as powerless in a major crisis directly affecting its strategic interests and its immediate neighbourhood.
After 24 civilian-military CSDP operations, relying only on NATO when considering security responses to the crisis would be an obvious step back.
The Sahel region also represents an area of concern for the EU. Threats there to stability and security are real and growing. Islamic terrorism (with spectacular hostage-taking operations ending in many cases by murders of European citizens), drug, cigarette and arms trafficking, human smuggling, and illegal migratory flows pose a global challenge to the European continent. Only an EU comprehensive strategy encompassing security (police, border control and military cooperation) and development aspects will yield concrete results. This region will also constitute a test of credibility for the Union.
Towards better civil-military interaction in capability development
Strategic autonomy implies a common vision and institutional tools but it also requires credible capabilities. Identifying emerging threats, defining a common strategy and designing a comprehensive response will prove dramatically useless if there are no credible capacities to enforce and sustain such an ambitious policy.
For now, the three main European countries (Germany, France, UK) have all announced measures to reduce spending and/or to change the configuration of their forces. The restrictions affecting these three states are obviously to be found in the other Member States, most of which already fell short of the 2% of GDP threshold in defence spending.
The current economic crisis is obviously not conducive to the assertion of new ambitions in this area. In such a context, rationalising capabilities and identifying duplications is even more necessary than usual. Looking for synergies between civilian and military capabilities can be a credible option in many areas of crisis management. The example of emergency evacuation of foreign nationals in Libya and humanitarian relief is a case in point.
We might praise the establishment of the European Air Transport Command in September and take note of the promising start of cooperation between NATO and the EU in programmes to counter improvised explosive devices and to underpin medical support, helicopters and possibly even the area of nuclear, radiological, biological and chemical protection. However, progress is mostly limited to the demonstration of good intentions. In addition to this, the confusion over the real role to be played by the European Defence Agency (EDA) – the importance of which is acknowledged in the Lisbon Treaty – feeds into serious doubts over the Member States’ political will to achieve closer cooperation. Tense discussion over the EDA’s budget – which will not increase – has shown lack of consensus on this crucial issue.
Europe needs to maintain a strong defence technological and industrial base (DTIB) to generate these capabilities in full autonomy. The Union must avoid selling off – under the pretext of supposedly virtuous economic and financial reasons – its strong and innovative defence technological and industrial base. Technology, global competitiveness, commercial strength and jobs is what is actually at stake, and this must be constantly brought to the attention of those who believe that defence spending is sterile and should be seen as a source of savings. Within the framework of the future EU financial perspectives, a debate should be open on the pooling of some spending related to common security, with a view to developing dual technologies.
Despite the rather bleak view of the CSDP since the new Treaty, some developments do provide us with a sigh of relief. Some initiatives are on the way and we can only hope the new international context will accelerate their implementation, given the danger of strategic relegation – not only as ‘Europe’ but also in terms of individual Member States, including the most powerful ones – and the lack of a European reaction with regard to defence issues.
Towards a Real EU Comprehensive Strategy to International Security
On December 9th, and for the first time in the history of the European institutions, the Defence Ministers wanted to issue a firm message, both formally and independent of the “supervision” of the Foreign Ministries, demanding the end of the crisis and a return to taking initiatives. This simple detail bears witness to the fact that the spirit of the Lisbon Treaty is becoming a reality in spite of continuing reticence on the part of some states who are not interested in the defence debate taking place in a more formal, specific framework under the authority of the High Representative. Although the debate was limited in terms of time and themes (capabilities), one point was clearly defined in this first meeting :
“the need to transform the financial crisis and its effects on national defence budgets into an opportunity to be seized, the aim being to provide new impetus to the development of European military capabilities […] and to protect the defence capabilities required to support the CSDP.”
In addition, the Weimar Triangle (Germany, France, Poland) addressed a joint letter to the High Representative on December 6th co-signed by the three Foreign Ministers and three Defence Ministers pleading in favour of a concerted effort for the CSDP. “In a context of great financial restriction we must be prepared to take audacious decisions” they asked Lady Ashton to work towards achieving “a more effective and efficient CSDP”. This initiative shows that these three major EU countries have not given up their European ambition in terms of defence.
The Weimar Triangle’s assertion in a new area illustrates the flexible, pragmatic way in which the CSDP is developing: bilateral capability agreements, operational proposals put forward unilaterally or in small groups of states, joint political initiatives, institutional experiments that result from the Lisbon Treaty and so on.
Without falling into the sterile confusion of excess, it seems that it would be an advantage to develop an initiative in the present context. However, we should never forget that, in terms of security and defence, the unstable and dangerous reality of the world in which we live will make us aware of the situation much more quickly than any of the political structures patiently put together by Brussels or by any other national capita and the current evolutions in the Arab world will hopefully do the trick.
The EU and its CSDP can and should make advances on these different fronts.
This is a political and strategic imperative. The Treaty of Lisbon provides a useful basis and the achievements made in ten years of ESDP are far from insignificant.
It is now urgent to create a political dynamic by returning to the ambitions formed in the wake of the disillusionments of the 1990 s, which, as we must never forget, were marked by a resurgence of fratricidal and bloody conflicts upon our European continent.
Source : « Eine einsatzfähige Armee für Europa », edited by Nomos, Baden-Baden, 2011