Memorandum by Major General (Ret) Mr Drs
Kees Homan RNLMC, Senior Research Fellow, Netherlands Institute
of International Relations "Clingendael" The Hague
1. PROCEDURE
FOR INCORPORATING
DEFENCE INTO
THE EU
(a) The WEU's political role can be absorbed
in the second pillar of the EU. The WEU's operational capabilities
(planning cell, a crisis-management centre, an intelligence unit
and a centre for processing satellite information) can be transferred
to the EU.
The WEU Article V commitment can be carried
into the EU, but allows only those EU members which are also in
NATO to be full participants in defence policy-making.
Main obstacles are the right of NATO or the
EU to block an action and resolving the status of non-NATO EU
states and non-EU NATO states.
(b) The agreement at the June 1996 NATO
Berlin Summit on Combined Joint Task Forces allows for NATO to
execute WEU-led military missions. The WEU would have the politico-military
leadership, but operations would be carried out by forces and
staffs pulled from within the NATO military structure and supplemented
by those of WEU nations not represented in NATO's military commands.
NATO's normal command structure would regroup for such missions,
so that only European officers were directly involved. The European
Defence Capability is organised outside the framework of NATO.
(c) This depends on the political will of
the European Union. Finance, the position of France and the relations
with the United States will be the biggest problems to solve.
(d) Ireland, Austria, Finland and Sweden
should give their consent for a EU-led military mission. Nevertheless,
as each EU mission will be a "coalition of the willing",
not only neutral but also other members of the EU will not be
obliged to take part.
Turkey as a non-EU member is in a special position
because it can use its position in NATO to veto the use of NATO
assets by the EU. It should be given associate membership of the
EU's new defence arrangements. This associate membership should
also be given to other NATO's non-EU European members.
2. SUBSTANCE
OF EUROPEAN
DEFENCE
a. As far as I know NATO will be given a
"first option" or a "right of first refusal"
on intervening in any crisis before the EU may decide to act on
its own — with or without NATO assets. This arrangement
applies to the Petersberg tasks. But in accordance with its new
Strategic Concept, NATO will also be able to conduct crisis response
operations, which in my opinion also include Petersberg tasks.
b. At this moment there is a lively discussion
within the EU on the funding of a European Defence. It may be
clear that without a substantial increase in defence expenditures
a serious European Defence will be utopian. I doubt that the declarations
on defence will translate into actions and expenditure to realise
the European's Headline Goal announced in Helsinki for 2003. This
will take more years.
The sharing of costs is another topic of discussion.
The most realistic solution is — like for the EMU —
to develop convergence criteria, for instance a minimum percent
of GDP for defence and a minimum percent of the defence budget
for procurement and R&D. However, for some EU-countries it
will be difficult to spend more on defence without breaching EMU
commitments.
c. There is no real need to create a European
armaments industry, a common procurement policy and standard military
operating procedures and methods. Nevertheless, a lot of money
could be saved and it could build up political pressure which
should influence the development of a European Defence Capability
in a positive way.
d. As this policy sector belongs to the
second pillar of the EU there is no European parliamentary accountability.
However there is some national parliamentary control. As a first
step toward European parliamentary accountability a Defence Committee
in the European Parliament should be established.
3. FORCE STRUCTURE
a. A European Union capability can be developed
by forming force pools. The required satellite, transport and
intelligence capacity should be achieved by common funding, like
AWACS in NATO.
b. Conscripts are mostly geared to territorial
defence and not to the Petersberg tasks. Countries who still have
conscription (Germany, Italy and Spain) should be encouraged to
introduce all-volunteer forces. An improvement in the rapid reaction
capacity of these three countries would give a crucial boost to
Europe's defence capabilities. Germany will be central in this.
It has the largest armed forces in the EU, but their force projection
capacity is small as they are largely conscript. Of 333,500 German
soldiers only a few thousand are on a voluntary base currently
available for "out of area" operations.
Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that
countries with all-volunteer forces, like the United Kingdom,
the Netherlands and Belgium are coping with manpower problems.
c. In contrast with the public impression
that was created, the Helsinki agreement did not entail the establishment
of a fully integrated, permanent army. European countries interested
to participate in EU-led military operations were called on to
earmark national units that could serve as modules or building
blocks for ad hoc military formations. No European country
is calling for a standing European army. A force pool will be
formed by assets contributed by individual member states. The
force pool must have a strength of 15 brigades (50,000 to 60,000
soldiers). Depending on the nature of the operation it must be
possible for non-member states of the EU to participate. Turkey
has already announced to contribute one brigade.
4. GENERAL
a. For an effective European common foreign
and security policy you need military capabilities to enforce
it. EU's declarations on foreign policy will carry more weight
if backed up by the potential to deploy firepower.
b. By using the Amsterdam Treaty's "constructive
abstention" procedure a member of the EU can preserve its
national interest.
EU-led military operations will be probably
ad-hoc coalitions to which EU-members contribute whose
interests are at stake. This is a very pragmatic approach in which
the intergovernmental model can be durable, because international
security and defence strike at the heart of national sovereignty.
c. The United States is ambivalent toward
an autonomous European Defence Capability. On the one hand American
isolationism feeds on continuous complaints about Europe's failure
to put its own house in order, but on the other hand Americans
raise some valid questions over the EU's potentially wasteful
duplication of NATO's resources and capabilities; over a self-defeating
decline of EU states' commitment to NATO as the primary institution
for the transatlantic allies and their partners; over an ambiguous
distribution of authority between well-tested NATO mechanisms
and a newly-created bureaucracy of standing committees and competing
military staffs; over a troubling discrimination toward NATO states
that do not belong to the EU; and over a dangerous backdoor diversion
of NATO security commitments toward non-NATO states that belong
to the EU.
I'm not very familiar with the Russian position.
The EU is regarded by Russia as the most powerful economic partner
and most important political actor in Europe, whereas its security
role is considered marginal and not (yet) threatening to Russia's
interests. The development of a European Defence Capability may
change this perception. In an informal conference with retired
Russian generals in the Peace Palace in the Hague last February
these generals were very opposed to an autonomous European Defence
Capability because they consider the EU as an economic organisation
which in their perception is now also becoming a defence organisation.
They said that they consider this is a new threat for Russia.
For instance Estonia, which will probably not become a member
of NATO in the near future, will by becoming a member of the EU
be involved in the European Defence Capability.
I have no opinion on how the new arrangements
will affect the relations with Europe's "near abroad".
d. The current proposals make a qualitative
difference to the development of a European capability because
for the first time concrete military targets have been defined.
April 2000
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