NON-MILITARY CRISIS MANAGEMENT
(20700)
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Presidency report on non-military crisis-management of the European Union.
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| Legal base: |
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| Department: |
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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| Basis of consideration:
| EM of 30 November 1999
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| Previous Committee Report:
| None |
| To be discussed in Council:
| General Affairs Council on 6 December and Helsinki European Council on 10 December
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| Committee's assessment:
| Politically important |
| Committee's decision:
| Cleared |
Background
20.1 The Conclusions of the Cologne European
Council called for the Council to "deal thoroughly with all
discussions on aspects of security, with a view to enhancing and
better co-ordinating the Union's and Member States' non-military
crisis-response tools."
The Presidency report
20.2 In this draft report, the Presidency
outlines action it has already initiated to draw up inventories
of the tools available. These clearly show, it says, that the
European Union and its Member States have accumulated considerable
experience and resources in a number of areas, such as civilian
rehabilitation, search and rescue, and electoral and human rights
monitoring.
20.3 In order to map out the way ahead,
the Presidency has drawn up a draft Action Plan. This states that
the EU should aim to:
- strengthen the responsiveness and efficiency
of its resources and those of non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
and to promote synergy between them, while maintaining flexibility
for each contributor to decide on deployment;
- enhance its contributions when working with other
organisations, such as the UN and OSCE; and
- ensure inter-pillar coherence.
20.4 To achieve these aims, the Presidency
suggests:
- the development of a rapid reaction capability,
to be used either in response to a request from a lead agency,
like the UN or the OSCE, or in autonomous EU actions. This would
be a question of drawing up an agreed framework and modalities,
and of identifying in advance the personnel, material and financial
resources that would be used;
- a database should be maintained on the "pre-identified"
assets and expertise, with their availability and quality clearly
defined;
- a study should be carried out, defining targets
which might be set, such as "to deploy a combined search
and rescue capability of up to 200 people within 24 hours".
20.5 The Presidency suggests that the inventory,
the database and the study should help with identifying areas
of relative strength and weakness. Common training standards and
the sharing of best practice, as well as suggestions for bilateral
and multilateral projects, could be promoted using this knowledge.
To take on these tasks and ensure the effectiveness of the Member
States' contributions, a light co-ordinating unit should be set
up in the Council Secretariat.
20.6 In addition to these measures, the
Presidency suggests that the Commission should set up a rapid
reaction fund (RRF) which would allow it to provide financial
support, rapidly, to EU activities, as well as to operations run
by other international organisations, including NGOs.
20.7 A comprehensive approach should
be developed, the Presidency says, with new decision-making
arrangements set in place to take into account both military
and non-military aspects of crisis management.
The Government's view
20.8 The Minister of State at the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office (Mr Vaz) says that the Government supports
the report, considering that it will help to ensure that the EU's
response to an international crisis is more effective and practical,
and will complement work which is also being taken forward to
strengthen the capacity of the EU to take decisions on military
deployments on crisis management tasks.
Conclusion
20.9 This report should be read in conjunction
with the Presidency's draft report on strengthening the Common
European Security and Defence Policy[60].
We clear this report, but ask the Minister to inform us if important
political issues are raised when it is discussed in the Council.
60 (20699) - ; see paragraph 5 of this Report. Back
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