Select Committee on Defence Eighth Report


EIGHTH REPORT

The Defence Committee has agreed to the following Report:—

EUROPEAN SECURITY AND DEFENCE

INTRODUCTION

The European Scrutiny Committee Reference

1. On 1 December 1999 the European Scrutiny Committee requested an 'Opinion' from the Defence Committee on European Union Document No. 20699, the Finnish Presidency's Progress Report to the Helsinki European Council on Strengthening of the Common European Policy on Security and Defence: First Measures on the Military Instruments of Crisis Management and Guidance for Further Work.[8] We particularly welcomed this invitation as this subject was one we had under active consideration, and on which we had already commented extensively in our report last year on the future of NATO.[9] This is the first time the European Scrutiny Committee has exercised its relatively new power[10] under S.O. No. 143(11) to request such an Opinion. The standing order does not set out how such an Opinion should be offered, or what it should cover. However, the remit of the European Scrutiny Committee itself is to examine European Union documents and—

    ... to report its opinion on the legal and political importance of each such document and, where it considers appropriate, to report also on the reasons for its opinion and on any matters of principle, policy or law which may be affected; [and] to consider any issue arising upon any such document or group of documents, or related matters.[11]

We have assumed that it is these questions that our Opinion should address.

2. We have been asked for an Opinion on the implementation of a decision now made by the EU's member states' governments. We have not been asked to consider the general competence of the EU and, since we would be unlikely to be able to reach a consensus on such a question, we have made no attempt to address it.

The Progress Report

3. The document we have been asked to consider, which was adopted at the Helsinki Summit on 10-11 December 1999, announces two principal strands of activity within the European Union over the next year and beyond. The first, and probably most important, is the adoption of a so-called—

The implementation of this goal (intended to enable the generation of a force of around 60,000 personnel and the necessary support available for rapid deployment) will be taken forward over the next two years.

4. The second strand relates to the establishment within the EU of institutions to provide co-ordinated political and strategic control of these deployable multinational military capabilities.[13] These have now been established on an interim basis[14] and consist of:

  • A Political and Security Committee (PSC) in Brussels, composed of permanent representatives of the member states.[15]

  • A Military Committee, composed of the Chiefs of Defence Staff of member states or their delegates, reporting to the PSC.[16]

  • A Military Staff, within the secretariat of the EU's General Affairs Council (GAC), to perform 'early warning, situation assessment and strategic planning' under the direction of the Military Committee.[17]

5. The third element of activity set out in the Progress Report is the establishment of principles and mechanisms for cooperation between the EU member states, non-EU European NATO allies and other European partners; and for EU-NATO cooperation on military crisis management.[18]

6. It is the implications of these proposals for the development of an EU military capability and the institutions required to deploy it which we will examine in this report.

The CESDP, the CFSP and the ESDI

7. The Helsinki proposals refer to the 'Common European Security and Defence Policy' (CESDP). This is also referred to as the ESDP. The possibility of a 'common defence policy' was first mentioned in the Maastricht Treaty in 1991, but it is only now that it is being talked about as something both concrete and realisable. The CESDP, the Secretary of State told us, was the "strict, technical title" of the European Defence Initiative launched by the UK at the informal European Council at Pörtschach, Austria in the autumn of 1998.[19] The Prime Minister described this as—

    ... aimed at giving greater credibility to Europe's Common Foreign and Security Policy ... We Europeans should not expect the United States to have to play a part in every disorder in our own back yard. The European Union should be able to take on some security tasks on our own, and we will do better through a common European effort than we can by individual countries acting on their own.[20]

8. The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), to which the Prime Minister referred, is established under Title V of the Treaty of European Union (as first embodied in the Maastricht Treaty and subsequently adapted by the Amsterdam Treaty). This states that—

    The Union shall define and implement a common foreign and security policy covering all areas of foreign and security policy, the objectives of which shall be:
  • to safeguard the common values, fundamental interests, independence and integrity of the Union in conformity with the principles of the United Nations Charter;
  • to strengthen the security of the Union in all ways;
  • to preserve peace and strengthen international security, in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter, as well as the principles of the Helsinki Final Act and the objectives of the Paris Charter, including those on external borders;
  • to promote international cooperation;
  • to develop and consolidate democracy and the rule of law, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.[21]

The general direction of the CFSP is to be determined by the European Council (the Heads of State and Heads of Governments who meet twice yearly at the European Summits) and is to be implemented by the Council of Ministers. The Treaty states that—

    The European Council shall define the principles of and guidelines for the common foreign and security policy, including for matters with defence implications [and] shall decide on common strategies to be implemented by the Union in areas where the Member States have important interests in common. Common strategies shall set out their objectives, duration and the means to be made available by the Union and the Member States.

    The Council [of Ministers] shall take the decisions necessary for defining and implementing the common foreign and security policy on the basis of the general guidelines defined by the European Council ... shall recommend common strategies to the European Council and shall implement them, in particular by adopting joint actions and common positions [and] shall ensure the unity, consistency and effectiveness of action by the Union.[22]

The CESDP rests on this second 'pillar' of the EU.[23]

9. In its final communiqué from the Helsinki Summit the European Council announced that it had adopted—

    ... the two Presidency progress reports ... on developing the Union's military and non-military crisis management capability as part of a strengthened common European policy on security and defence [and underlined] its determination to develop an autonomous capacity to take decisions and, where NATO as a whole is not engaged, to launch and conduct EU-led military operations in response to international crises.

"This process" it added, "will avoid unnecessary duplication and does not imply the creation of a European army".[24]

10. We asked the Secretary of State to explain how the CESDP relates to the European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI). He defined the ESDI as a NATO initiative, which—

    ... allows the European nations to make use of NATO assets and capabilities to undertake crisis management operations, set out in the 1996 Berlin agreement between the WEU and NATO, [which] is now developed to allow European Union/NATO cooperation under what is known as "Berlin Plus".[25]

Since 1985, the Western European Union (WEU) has been the institutional mechanism for the development of the ESDI. In his evidence to us on 16 February this year, the Secretary of State described the WEU as reaching "... the end of its sensible working life ...".[26] He went on—

    ... the WEU itself has adapted over time. The idea that this is a fixed body that has always had the same functions and responsibilities is simply not the case ... I can see the possibility of further change for parts of what it does [but] ... the essential functions in the WEU [will] be folded into the European Union to avoid ... unnecessary duplication that might otherwise arise. There are still some discussions that we have to have about what parts of the institutional make-up of the WEU would continue after that process.[27]

11. Although the ESDI has been under active development for over ten years, the decision to take the WEU out of the equation and locate the ESDI within the EU has created a new set of problems which the EU and NATO must now try to resolve. Essentially, these concern how to integrate the six European NATO Allies who are not members of the EU into the CESDP, and how to integrate the four members of the EU who are not NATO Allies into the ESDI. These problems are what the institutional mechanisms set out in the Finnish Presidency's Progress Report are intended to solve. How these arrangements might work is a central question which we examine below. Future enlargement of the EU may also be affected by the way in which the CESDP develops.

12. Before we turn to that more detailed examination of the future arrangements for EU/NATO cooperation set out in the Progress Report, we review briefly the history of the development of the European pillar of NATO.

EUROPEAN SECURITY STRUCTURES

   
EU
WEU
NATO
BELGIUM
Member
Member
Member
FRANCE
Member
Member
Member
GERMANY
Member
Member
Member
GREECE
Member
Member
Member
ITALY
Member
Member
Member
LUXEMBOURG
Member
Member
Member
NETHERLANDS
Member
Member
Member
PORTUGAL
Member
Member
Member
SPAIN
Member
Member
Member
UK
Member
Member
Member
DENMARK
Member
Observer
Member
AUSTRIA
Member
Observer
Neutral
FINLAND
Member
Observer
Neutral
IRELAND
Member
Observer
Neutral
SWEDEN
Member
Observer
Neutral
CZECH REPUBLIC   
Applicant
Associate Member
Member
HUNGARY
Applicant
Associate Member
Member
ICELAND
   
Associate Member
Member
NORWAY
   
Associate Member
Member
POLAND
Applicant
Associate Member
Member
TURKEY
Applicant
Associate Member
Member
ALBANIA
   
   
Applicant
BULGARIA
Applicant
Associate Partner
Applicant
ESTONIA
Applicant
Associate Partner
Applicant
LATVIA
Applicant
Associate Partner
Applicant
LITHUANIA
Applicant
Associate Partner
Applicant
MACEDONIA
   
   
Applicant
ROMANIA
Applicant
Associate Partner
Applicant
SLOVAKIA
Applicant
Associate Partner
Applicant
SLOVENIA
    Applicant    
    Associate Partner    
    Applicant    




8  See letter from Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, Ev p 26 Back

9  Third Report, Session 1999-2000, The Future of NATO: The Washington Summit, HC 39, paras 62-95 Back

10  Granted in November 1998 Back

11  Standing Order No. 143(1) Back

12  European Union Document 20699, 24 November 1999, Presidency Progress Report to the Helsinki European Council on Strengthening of the Common European Policy on Security and Defence: First Measures on the Military Instruments of Crisis Management and Guidance for Further Work, para 4 (hereafter 'Progress Report') Back

13  ibid, para 5 Back

14  Q 92 Back

15  Progress Report, para 20 Back

16  ibid, para 21 Back

17  ibid, para 22 Back

18  ibid, paras 6 and 7 Back

19  Q 8 Back

20  Speech at the Royal United Services Institute, 8 March 1999 Back

21  Treaty on European Union, Title V, Article 11, paras 1 and 2 Back

22  ibid, Title V, Article 13 Back

23  The other 'pillars' are the Community pillar (first) and Cooperation on Justice and Home Affairs (third). Back

24  Declaration of the Helsinki European Council, paras 25 and 27 Back

25  Q 8, for an explanation of 'Berlin Plus' see paragraph 20 (for the 'Berlin' arrangements agreed at the 1996 NATO Berlin Summit) and paragraph 28 (for the 'Berlin Plus' arrangements agreed at the 1999 NATO Washington Summit) Back

26  Q 20 Back

27  Q 107 Back


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2000
Prepared 11 May 2000