Supplementary memorandum from the Ministry
of Defence (19 November 2003)
Q 34 A paper on progress towards meeting
the Helsinki headline goals, particularly the target of being
able to deploy up to 60,000 troops at 60 days' notice for deployment
in the field for at least a year, with detail of how many personnel
in total would be required to sustain such a deployment for a
year, and how many are in fact available. It would be helpful
if this paper could also contain information on how many of the
personnel involved are double-hatted with commitment to NATO tasks
(cf QQ 47-49). Information on shortfalls other than in personnel
numbers would also be appreciated.
In December 1999, at Helsinki, the members of
the European Council set themselves a Headline Goal: "co-operating
together voluntarily, they will be able to deploy rapidly, and
then sustain, forces capable of the full range of Petersberg Tasks
as set out in the Amsterdam Treaty, including, in the most demanding,
in operations up to corps level (up to 15 brigades or 50-60,000
persons). These forces should be militarily self sustaining, with
the necessary command, control and intelligence capabilities,
logistics and other combat support services, and additionally,
as appropriate, air and naval elements. Member States should be
able to deploy in full at this level within 60 days, and within
this, to provide smaller rapid response elements available and
deployable at very high readiness. They must be able to sustain
such a deployment for at least one year." [Presidency Conclusions,
Annex I to Annex IV, Military Capabilities for Petersberg Tasks]
In fact Countries have offered over 100,000
troops to the Catalogue at a readiness level of 60 days or under
and to sustain them for a year. Sizeable elements of the Catalogue
are offered at higher readiness for rapid response. However, operational
capability is not merely a question of troop numbers: the key
point remains the type and deployability of military assets available.
The actual numbers of air, naval and combat support personnel
needed would vary according to the precise nature of a specific
operation, how many are run at once, and where they are. Another
variable influencing the overall numbers of troops required to
sustain a year's deployment would be the different roulement policies
of the countries contributing forces. From the capability viewpoint,
ESDP does not need to look behind the numbers offered—that
is for the member state concerned to sustain their offer.
At present, of the 144 capability targets initially
identified, 26 capabilities shortfalls remain. These shortfalls
may be either (or both) qualitative or quantitative in nature,
and many are similar to the shortfalls seen within NATO. They
include key enabling capabilities (eg strategic mobility), and
capabilities that would be relevant to the higher-intensity end
of the Petersberg Tasks (eg in Intelligence, Surveillance, Target
Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR), in Surveillance and Target
Acquisition units/Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) battalions, and
in the suppression of enemy air defence (SEAD)). In light of this,
in May 2003, the EU General Affairs & External Relations Council
(GAERC) declared that "the EU now has operational capability
across the full range of Petersberg tasks, limited and constrained
by recognised shortfalls. These limitations and/or constraints
are on deployment time and high risk may arise at the upper end
of the spectrum of scale and intensity, in particular when conducting
concurrent operations. These limitations and constraints on full
achievement of the Headline and Capability Goals could be alleviated
if the recommendations on meeting the shortfalls are followed-up."
15 Project Groups have been established to address many of the
shortfalls in both the medium and longer term.
Most EU Member/Accession States are NATO members,
and declare forces to both ESDP and NATO. Information is not available
on the overall extent of this "double-hatting" but it
makes sense, as similar types of forces are required whether operating
under ESDP or NATO auspices, and many of the needs of ESDP are
the same as those for which troops declared to NATO already train.
What is the Government's view on how an expanding
European defence policy should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny,
and on whether provisions for such scrutiny should be included
in a final text?
The Government remains convinced of that Common
Foreign and Security Policy and Common Security and Defence Policy
should remain a matter for decisions by Member States in the Council.
This is reflected in the draft Treaty. The Government has also
repeatedly made clear its view that national parliaments have
the primary role in the scrutiny of policy and decisions in these
areas while noting the arrangements set out in the draft Treaty
for the European Parliament to be consulted on the main aspects
of CFSP, including CSDP. It therefore intends that Parliament
should have the time and information required to allow a proper
scrutiny of CSDP decisions, while ensuring that scrutiny arrangements
allow rapid decision-making and protect information which, if
made public, might be used to the detriment of the operational
security of military operations in which British and other European
troops are involved. Arrangements for handling classified information
must also be robust enough to satisfy the rightly demanding standards
set by the EU and NATO Security Authorities and by allied governments.
The Government has already put in place with
the European Scrutiny Committees of both Houses the following
arrangements:
— The Government deposits for scrutiny
ESDP Joint Actions, Common Positions, and Council Decisions on
the same basis as other CSFP documents. In other words, it submits
Explanatory Memoranda with unclassified ESDP texts and, for classified
documents, it submits EMs with unclassified summaries.
— In order to give as much time as
possible for consideration of such texts, officials aim to provide
the Committee clerks with early drafts as soon as they become
available.
Under the new Treaty, the Council of Ministers
and national governments will need to be able to make decisions
rapidly in order to react effectively to emerging problems. The
Government therefore does not believe it would be appropriate
for the Treaty to make specific provisions for scrutiny by national
parliaments. The Government will make every effort to observe
the established arrangements for the scrutiny of proposed European
decisions in relation to CSDP. However, the modern need for rapid
deployment will mean that there will inevitably be times when
the Government has to decide to take part in EU decisions before
scrutiny is completed.
Future operations are likely to be mixed—encompassing
both military and civilian components, and involving both EU and
national resources. How does the Government propose to ensure
that the financial burden of future operations is equitably shared
out?
The costs of ESDP operations, whether civil,
military or joint, are funded by two means:
(i) The costs of military units and police
and other civilian personnel offered by individual nations and
deployed on an operation are borne by the sending Member State.
(ii) Limited other costs are categorised
as common costs incurred in support of an operation as a whole
(ie the additional costs of using national military and police
headquarters, and the provision of common-use support equipment
and facilities). These are divided between all Member States,
not just those participating in an operation, whether through
the CFSP budget (for civil assets) or ad hoc Council-endorsed
arrangements (for military assets, according to the percentage
cost shares used to calculate Member States' contributions to
the wider European Community budget. Member States which opt to
abstain from a Council decision to launch an operation under Art
III-201(1) are not obliged to contribute to the financing of common
costs. The cost shares reflect nations' abilities to pay by being
based on a Gross National Product scale. In some cases, non-Member
State contributors may be asked to pay a contribution towards
common costs.
These arrangements would be respected even if
an operation contained military and civilian elements. The Government
is satisfied that this system ensures a fair financial burden
on all Member States bear their equitable share of the costs.
What prompted HMG's decision to offer to
act as lead nation in a future EU operations in Bosnia?
HMG is committed to supporting International
Community objectives in securing a stable, secure and democratic
Bosnia. This includes full integration into Euro-Atlantic structures.
The UK has long played a leading role in moving towards these
objectives, having lead the ARRC in IFOR, and sees its offer to
take first turn at leading an EU-led operation in Bosnia, should
NATO decide to wind up SFOR as part of this strategy.
Is an EU operation in Moldova in prospect?
No. However, the EU is committed to securing
a solution to the range of issues affecting Moldova, and in supporting
the OSCE in their efforts to reach a settlement agreeable to all
Parties, continues to monitor the situation closely.
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