Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
15 OCTOBER 2003
MR SIMON
WEBB CBE, DR
SARAH BEAVER
AND MR
PAUL JOHNSTON
Q1 Chairman:
Mr Webb and colleagues, I am sorry for the slight delay in having
you in. Welcome. We will try to finish at five o'clock, which
will impose obligations on questioners. I will start off with
a long first question. Colleagues, the first question is that
we received the Food for Thought paper prepared in late August.
It appears the Government's main concern is that constitutional
changes should promote the development of capabilities but the
IGC is focussed on reaching agreement on a new Treaty—not
directly on developing capabilities. What specific institutional
provisions in the Treaty will act as an incentive to Member States
to develop their military capabilities?
Mr Webb: Thank you, Chairman.
Perhaps I could introduce my colleagues. On my left is Dr Sarah
Beaver, who is the director for the EU and the UN in the Ministry
of Defence and on my right Mr Paul Johnston is the head of Security
Policy Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. You
are quite right, Chairman, that we have approached the Convention
and now the IGC very much with an eye to capabilities and there
is one part of it where the UK has actually been pretty pro-active
in looking to make some progress and this is in relation to the
agency. I use that word because there are various titles around
but as in Mrs Gisela Stuart's original submission to the Convention
of last autumn it was very much described at that stage as a defence
capability development agency. I think this reflected some discussion,
particularly in London, that we needed a stronger mechanism to
ginger and encourage the development of capabilities in ESDP and
that although some of the existing mechanisms that we have been
working with for the last few years have had their place we needed
something a bit more permanent and with a strong political dimension
to it. So we have been very much promoters of the agency to that
extent and in fact we are pretty much happy with the clause in
the Treaty about this. I am afraid we are going to spend a lot
of time this afternoon referring to particular clause numbers.
The best exposition of it is in Article III-212, if you have that
available to you.
Q2 Chairman: Yes, we have got that.
Have you had any success in persuading them to make any amendments
which might lead to a greater focus on capabilities?
Mr Webb: We have, Chairman. We
are actually happy with the general thrust of Article III-212
in terms of the coverage of capabilities and what it purports
to do. The only thing we were less comfortable with, oddly enough,
is the title but help was at hand because at the Thessaloniki
council this spring a different title was proposed. The same
idea was promoted but with a different title. At Thessaloniki
they talked about an intergovernmental agency in the field of
defence capabilities development, research, acquisition and armaments.
So that put capabilities at the front of the title, which is very
much how we see it. We see the issue as being to develop capabilities
within ESDP and that research and acquisition and the armaments
issue are in support of that. So we have been doing well with
this debate and actually on the internal paperwork, which currently
we are working on very hard, about setting up the agency .The
Thessaloniki title is in there. So I think this has been a useful
step forward and we are pretty confident that we will get this
agency up and running, possibly even ahead of the Treaty.
Q3 Chairman: It looks like a bit
of a sop to me, Mr Webb, just to keep the Brits happy. Throw them
a few sprats and they might not be so worried about the content
as laid out?
Mr Webb: No, not at all. It cannot
be a sprat since we proposed it.
Mr Howarth: That is a non sequitur,
Mr Webb.
Q4 Chairman: I am not entirely convinced
by your own satisfaction.
Mr Webb: We have been working
very hard on this. Myself and Dr Beaver were at a gathering last
week, there was another one yesterday, there is another one at
the end of this month and we are trying at the moment to see if
we can get a decision out in the Italian presidency. I think that
is a bit optimistic but that is the sort of pace we are going
at. We are very specifically talking about an organisation which
would actually get into the business of identifying capability
objectives, evaluating and observing the ability of capability
commitments. That takes you into the area of assessment, evaluation
and in other more detailed paperwork scrutiny. So we are looking
towards something which is actually saying, what objectively is
the capacity of the ESDP and then to move on from there to look
at the tasks that the organisation is trying to undertake and
from there into operational needs, harmonisation requirements
and then projects. So we are absolutely determined to try and
make progress in this area and I think it would be fair to say
we have had a very good consensus on this. I think there is a
consensus running at 25 on this subject. There are some structural
points. I mean, people have views about structural issues, which
is why we have so many meetings to deal with it, but we are nonetheless
making good progress. So this is a part of the treaty that I think
we can very warmly welcome and I would really commend it to the
Committee, perhaps with a change of title.
Q5 Chairman: NATO has been trying
for years to get some of our colleagues to do rather more and
that has failed miserably. Do you honestly think the promise of
an agency or a change of wording is going to generate greater
commitment to their own defence and to collective defence than
hitherto has been achieved?
Mr Webb: This may be a slightly
controversial remark and we in Defence are a bit new to the EU
but I think it is fair to say the EU has developed a lot through
its institutions and institutions particularly when you get a
good political dynamic in them, can actually have an effect on
the development of the Union. So I think we do see it actually
as a step forward. That would not work in NATO; NATO is a very
differently structured organisation. I might say that we work
just as hard on pushing capabilities in the NATO arena, particularly
now in the context of the NATO Response Force and in looking at
new ways of exploiting Allied Command Transformation. So there
is a lot going on on that scene too. But in terms of the EU, I
think the agency could be the sort of prod for further activities
that the EU needs but in EU terms. It is a different type of structure.
Q6 Chairman: Are the capabilities
that the EU will need to acquire to carry out a crisis management
operation compatible with those sought by NATO to carry out higher
intensity war fighting operations through, as you mentioned, the
NATO Response Force or are we really asking Member States to spend
on a diverse range of capabilities which they probably would be
reluctant to do?
Mr Webb: It is a very good point
and we obviously want to have harmonization and it has always
been a British cry to avoid duplication. How we do that is through
something called the Capability Development Mechanism. At the
same time as we agreed the Berlin Plus arrangements, just in parallel
with that, we produced a document which actually links the NATO
and the EU capability planning systems in a coherent way and in
particular promotes complete transparency and there is actually
a working group which meets regularly to have a look at that.
That has had some useful progress already and in particular I
would just like to mention two areas where I think things have
been going well. One is on Air Lift and another is on Air-to-Air
Refuelling. I do not need to explain to this Committee the importance
of both of those. In those cases it turned out that there was
something in the Prague capability commitments conference about
both of those and within ESDP there were European Capability Action
Plan panels working on both of those, which have become projects.
Correct me if I am wrong but I think we have now managed to pretty
much get those two things to come together and indeed on one of
them we surrendered our chair to the Germans so that they could
chair both and make sure you got that coherence. So actually things
are going reasonably well in that direction. None of this produces
instant money but you may have noticed that last week, for example,
when we were all in Colorado Springs for the NATO meeting there
were actually further commitments made on the Air-to-Air Refuelling
side by a range of countries. So it is not an instant solution
but I think we have got the basic geography heading in the right
direction.
Q7 Mr Howarth: Is the harmonization
on the Air-to-Air Refuelling going to be reflected in the Government's
position on the two competing bids which are before your department
at the moment, Mr Webb?
Mr Webb: Do you know, I cannot
see that on the agenda this afternoon, Chairman, but perhaps I
have missed something!
Q8 Mr Howarth: The point I am making
is that if we are talking about capabilities, about non-duplication
of harmonization, here you are faced with an imminent decision
on two proposals. How is all this new structure feeding through
to ensure that when we take that decision others maybe will follow
suit and follow our decision? Are we being influenced by their
thoughts?
Mr Webb: Not in terms of the specific
competition. I have to say I am not an expert on that end of it.
But one thing is sure, which is that if we can harmonize the requirements
and we can harmonize the timescales either through the NATO defence
planning process or through the EU Headline Goal but now we think
reinforced by the Agency that gives you the chance of having a
bigger market and of allowing more sensible acquisition decisions
which can exploit the bigger scale of purchase to mutual benefit.
So that is certainly, I think, a longer term possibility. I cannot
comment on the relevance of that to this particular project immediately
in front of us but in the longer term I think it is definitely
the right way to go.
Q9 Mr Cran: Mr Webb, it seems to
me, having read what was said to the House of Lords Committee
last week, the Government's vision for the ESDP is all about crisis
management outside the European Union but it seems equally clear
to me—maybe you disagree—that other states of the
European Union have a very different view about this whole scenario,
have a much broader view of what it should be and what it should
encompass. Is that something you agree with and without going
into too much of a panegyric could you tell us if I am correct
in my analysis? Which are the countries which are looking for
something very much broader than we are?
Mr Webb: I think the way I come
at this is to say that we have always been pretty clear that we
see the principal role of ESDP being in relation to crisis management
in the Petersberg tasks. You will see that actually there is a
proposal in the Treaty to expand the Petersberg tasks and I will
talk about that a bit later, but that is where we see the responsibilities
of ESDP being concentrated. That has been a consistent British
line under successive governments for many years. We have been
very careful—and you will have seen us repeat that on numerous
occasions—not to try to take over roles that we feel are
best fulfilled by NATO. Perhaps this point needs to be made in
general. There is negotiation going on about this Treaty and defence
is only one part of it, but subject to that caveat I think it
is clear and the Government is clear in its own White Paper about
what our position is on that. Of course you get people who have
other ideas but that is not new either, so I do not see there
is any great change of position in front of us here. There is
one clause in here which you will have seen, which is clause 40(7),
which proposes something which goes a bit further than that and
where I think our reservations have been made clear already.
Q10 Mr Cran: So the answer to the
second part of my question would be that I was actually wrong
in saying that some other members of the European Union had a
very much broader view?
Mr Webb: No. I was confirming
that. There certainly are.
Q11 Mr Cran: Could you just expand
on that? Are we talking about the French, the Greeks?
Mr Webb: I do not think it is
helpful in negotiation to identify other people.
Q12 Mr Cran: You are not negotiating
with me. I am just a seeker after knowledge. All I am asking is
what are the other key players about?
Mr Webb: If you look at clause
40(7) you will see that there is a proposal which obviously came
from somewhere—
Mr Cran: But you are not prepared to
tell us where?
Q13 Chairman: You are being very
challenged now. Your diplomatic skills are letting you down miserably.
It is a very simple question. If you do not give the names give
the approximate numbers with a plus or minus three. Are we going
to be on our own?
Mr Webb: No.
Q14 Chairman: Is some of the nonsense
contained within the documentation going to be implemented in
toto? Are we going to have some concessions thrown to us?
Just putting it slightly differently, are there other people in
the European Union who do not want to see some of the kind of
stuff which is before us at the present stage?
Mr Webb: Let me just say I believe
there to be a substantial majority of countries within the European
Union who share our view.
Chairman: I can sleep well in my bed
tonight knowing, Mr Webb, that you have said that. We will come
back to that later.
Mr Cran: Could I at least know who they
are?
Chairman: I will tell you afterwards.
Mr Webb is not going to name names, that is pretty obvious, but
he has said a substantial majority, which is pretty reassuring.
Mr Cran: It depends who is in the substantial
majority of course, Chairman, does it not?
Chairman: He is not going to tell us.
Q15 Mr Cran: All right, even though
you are not going to say that, just for the ordinary citizen,
of which of course I count myself to be just one, and just so
that they can understand and so can I, how does the concept that
we are talking about fit within the context of what the Prime
Minister said in the preface to the White Paper published in September
when he said: "The Government could only accept a final text
that made it clear that issues like defence remain the province
of the nation state"? So that the citizen can understand
what we are talking about, how do the two propositions sit together?
Mr Webb: That is, if I may say
so, on a different point.
Q16 Mr Cran: But I am entitled to
make the point.
Mr Webb: Yes, of course. I was
just going to explain why. The feature of the Treaty is that it
preserves the intergovernmental nature of the Common Foreign and
Security Policy and within that, European Security and Defence
Policy. One could construct an EU in which the sort of role played
by, for example, the European Commission of a different type of
constitutional structure could apply and I think one of the reasons
why the Government has overall found a great deal of this Treaty
very attractive is because it does preserve precisely that point,
the intergovernmental nature of the Foreign Security and Defence
Policy arena. So I think that is what the Prime Minister was referring
to in that respect. It is a slightly different point to what the
roles of ESDP should be.
Q17 Mr Cran: Going back to the point
I asked you about the different visions—and at least we
got out of you that there are different visions, albeit that we
might get agreement at the end of the day—do you think that
denying these unnamed countries the vision that they have in front
of them will in fact loosen their commitment to the whole principle
we are talking about and indeed to improving European capabilities,
defence capabilities?
Mr Webb: No. In fact some of the
strongest proponents for expansion are also some of the strongest
performers both on capabilities and on operations.
Q18 Mr Cran: We must place that remark
against what happens so maybe on a future occasion we can compare
what you said with what happens. The last thing I want to ask
is, has the Government's views on ESDP in any way been influenced
by the fighting in Iraq? I simply ask that question because, as
you yourself said, the original Petersberg tasks are being added
to in terms of a number of things but post-conflict stabilisation
is one of them. Did the one lead to the other or not?
Mr Webb: No, not specifically
because I think actually the proposal to expand the Petersberg
tasks was actually made last autumn, in November 2002, but the
mindset point is similar. Let me put it in this sense. We have
found ourselves in the international community (whether you are
talking about NATO, ad hoc coalitions or the ESDP operation, all
of which occurred in the last three or four years) very often
facing this issue, that a military intervention, particularly
into a state which has in some sense failed, leaves a question
about post-conflict stabilisation. So we have been very happy—we
were associated with the drafting of this—to see stabilisation
included just to make it clear that that was a valid role. Actually,
I think it is role where the EU has a lot to offer because, if
I may put it like this, the civil instruments are nearer to you
than they are in NATO. There is a very big EU machine which has
a big aid budget, which has lots of expertise in things like courts,
schools, borders, economic regeneration and all that kind of thing
and it is very close on hand. So I think one of the attractive
features about ESDP and something we certainly proselytize for
within the EU is to sort of bring together the civil and military
instruments together, which of course we are quite used to doing
in British practice, though not perfect, in ways which exploit
the EU's strengths. So that is a long way of saying it was not
specifically about Iraq but Iraq is a good example of the sort
of situation which it would be helpful for.
Q19 Mr Hancock: Hang on, Mr Webb,
does that not actually make it potentially more difficult to get
a military solution into play in an EU scenario where the competing
pressures to go down other routes would be far too compelling
for anyone to really want to settle on a military solution to
an issue easily?
Mr Webb: That cuts both ways,
does it not? It might be right not to have a military solution.
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