Documents considered by the Committee on 3 March 2010 - European Scrutiny Committee Contents


4 Common Security and Defence Policy

(30693)

10748/09

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Presidency Report on European Security and Defence Policy

Legal base
DepartmentForeign and Commonwealth Office
Basis of considerationMinister's letters of 22 December 2009, 1 February 2010 and 11 February 2010
Previous Committee ReportHC 19-xxi (2008-09), chapter 8 (24 June 2009); also see (30691) 10665/09: HC 19-xxi (2008-09), chapter 7 (24 June 2009)
Discussed in Council18-19 June 2009 European Council
Committee's assessmentPolitically important
Committee's decisionCleared (reported to the House on 24 June 2009)

Background

4.1 At their 1998 summit meeting in St Malo, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and former President Chirac proposed that the European Union should have "the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces": in particular, the military capacity to take on humanitarian tasks, rescue, peace-keeping and the tasks of combat forces in crisis management (as listed in Article 17.2 EU, known as Petersberg tasks).[8] These proposals were adopted at the Cologne European Council in June 1999.

4.2 At the 1999 NATO Washington Summit and, subsequently, the December 2000 Nice European Council, both organisations agreed that the EU would act only where NATO as a whole was not engaged. NATO also agreed at the Washington summit to support ESDP with the so-called "Berlin-plus" arrangements, whereby the EU can call on key NATO facilities in order to run its own military operations. The Helsinki European Council in December 1999 set Member States a military capability target known as the Headline Goal — deploying 50-60,000 troops, capable of conducting the full range of Petersberg Tasks, within 60 days, sustainable for up to a year, with air and naval support as necessary, before the end of 2003. From the likely scenarios envisaged, the EU Military Staff (EUMS) generated the "Helsinki Headline Catalogue" which specifies which capabilities are required in each of 144 capability areas. Member States aimed to address these shortfalls through the November 2001 European Capabilities Action Plan (ECAP).

4.3 Notwithstanding the findings of the first phase of ECAP in May, the June 2003 Thessaloniki European Council confirmed that ESDP was operational across the full range of Petersberg tasks, albeit limited and constrained by recognised capability shortfalls.

4.4 The June 2004 European Council then approved a new Headline Goal 2010, which focuses on the qualitative aspects of capabilities — interoperability, deployability and sustainability — as the basis of Member States' work on meeting capability shortfalls in the medium term.

4.5 At the same time, the December 2003 European Security Strategy, identified, in place of large-scale aggression against any Member State, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional conflicts, state failure and organised crime as "new threats which are more diverse, less visible and less predictable". This and the EU's Headline Goal 2010 aspirations led in 2004 to the Battlegroups initiative — each Battlegroup based on a combined arms, battalion-size force (1,500 troops) reinforced with combat support and combat service support; sustainable in the field for 30 days, extendable up to 120 days; capable of standalone operations or for the initial phase of large operations; employable across the full range of both the Petersberg tasks and those identified in the European Security Strategy; designed specifically, but not exclusively, to be used in response to a request from the UN.

4.6 At the 2004 Capability Commitment Conference, Member States made an initial commitment to the formation of 13 Battlegroups. Four Member States (UK, France, Italy and Spain) provided their national Battlegroups at an early stage of the programme, and in 2006 a German-French Battlegroup with contributions from Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain had achieved partial operational capability for evacuation and extraction. From January 2007, the EU was to have the full operational capability to undertake two Battlegroup-size rapid response operations, including the capability to launch both operations almost simultaneously.

4.7 The EU's civilian crisis management capability, or civilian ESDP, has developed in tandem, principally since the Helsinki European Council in December 1999. The June 2000 Feira European Council listed four priority areas in which the EU should acquire civilian capabilities — police, the rule of law, civil administration and civil protection — with the goal by 2003 of a police force of up to 5,000 personnel contributing to international missions across the range of conflict prevention and crisis management operations. The December 2004 European Council endorsed a Civilian Headline Goal 2008 which envisages the deployment of civilian ESDP capabilities within 30 days of the decision to launch a mission (e.g., to help with security sector reform and support to disarmament and demobilisation processes) while the December 2005 European Council agreed on a concept for setting up and deploying civilian response teams with the initial goal of a pool of up to 100 experts by the end of 2006 (for early assessment of a crisis situation, support for the establishment of civilian ESDP missions and support to an EU special representative or an ongoing civilian operation; mobilised and deployed within five days of a request).

The ESDP Presidency report

4.8 Hitherto, each Presidency has submitted a report on ESDP to the European Council (in December or June): recording significant developments over the six months of each Presidency; referring where appropriate to activities undertaken in earlier months; highlighting progress in specific areas; and drawing attention to others where further work is planned.

4.9 On 24 June, the Committee considered what turned out to be the last such report, recording ESDP developments during the Czech Presidency in the first half of 2009 and setting out the mandate for the incoming Swedish Presidency. The main sections of the report were: EU Operational Activities, Lessons Learned, Development of Civilian and Military Capabilities, Civil-Military Coordination, Human Rights, Gender and Children's Issues, EU Training and Exercises, and Co-operation with International Organisations and third states. It was helpfully and comprehensively summarised and analysed by the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Chris Bryant), as detailed in the relevant chapter of our Report (the annex to which contained the Swedish Presidency mandate, and which we again reproduce as an annex to this chapter).

4.10 Although this report raised no questions per se, as was customary, we reported it to the House because of the widespread interest in European Security and Defence Policy.

4.11 We also cleared the Report,[9] which was duly endorsed by the 18-19 June 2009 European Council.

4.12 Elsewhere in that Report we considered the annual report of the Council to the European Parliament on Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), where we summarised recent discussion with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office concerning scrutiny of CFSP and ESDP issues.[10]

The Minister's letter 22 December 2009

4.13 The Minister for Europe at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Chris Bryant) then wrote to the Committee concerning the Conclusions (generated by the customary biannual GAERC with Defence Ministers, held on 16-17 November 2009) which were endorsed by the 10-11 December 2009 European Council, containing a detailed update on developments in the field of ESDP, "re-branded by the Lisbon Treaty as the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)". These, the Minister explained, had replaced the customary Presidency report.

4.14 The Minister welcomed them as "a comprehensive description of progress and achievements in ESDP under the Swedish Presidency", in which he said "the UK has continued to take a leading role … to ensure that it remains in line with our objectives of having a more capable, coherent and active policy that remains supportive of, and complementary to, NATO." He welcomed in particular:

·@TAB@"the substantial progress in the field of civilian capabilities, especially improving the EU's ability to respond rapidly to a crisis by reworking the mechanism for deploying Civilian Response Teams, and establishing a temporary warehouse to store civilian equipment in order to ensure rapid deployment to new or existing missions;

·@TAB@"the increased focus on coordinating civilian and military capabilities where this is useful. We support this logical step which is an important component in delivering the comprehensive approach. The work has re-emphasised the need for greater coherence and consultation between the civilian and military capability development processes and institutional bodies. In delivering a more coherent approach to civ/mil capability development we have stressed (and the Presidency has supported) the urgency in establishing the Crisis Management Planning Directorate and the centrality of the directorate in all future civ/mil cooperation. We will continue to support further work in developing more concrete areas for co-operation, for example in logistics;

·@TAB@"agreement that EU Battlegroups could be used in a more flexible manner, on a voluntary and case-by-case basis, when Battlegroups' participants are willing and subject to unanimity in the Council that the Battlegroup is the best instrument for a given situation; and

·@TAB@"the progress made on the EU/NATO strategic partnership in crisis management, which is vital, given that 21 European countries are members of both organisations. Progress includes better use of the EU/NATO capability group and agreement that the EU and NATO defence planning processes should be more coherent with each other."

4.15 The remaining 12 pages summarised developments under a variety of headings, such as Operational Activities in various parts of the world, capabilities — both civilian and military — cooperation with international organisations and EU-NATO.

4.16 With regard to the last of these, the Minister referred to "fundamental political problems which seriously undermine the EU and NATO's relationship", where, he said, the "sensitivities of some Member States and Allies regarding the exchange of classified information remain an immediate problem which impacts directly on operational theatres", and with regard to which he would "continue to work with partners and Allies to take practical steps to improve relations, building on, for instance, the work we have done in increasing transparency in the two organisations' defence planning processes."

4.17 In its response of 13 January 2010, the Committee noted that all the measures that required scrutiny had already passed before the Committee in the form of Council Decisions, Common Positions and Joint Actions: but that, because of this change of practice, the House had been denied the normal opportunity of an Explanatory Memorandum from the Government on a Presidency report, which the Committee had customarily reported to the House because of the political importance of the subject matter. Since this appeared to be a retrograde step, the Committee asked to know what will happen in future with regard to both the customary six-monthly report and the annual report to the European Parliament each June.

4.18 In the meantime, particularly because of the issues the Minister had highlighted concerning "fundamental political problems which seriously undermine the EU and NATO's relationship", the Committee thought it desirable to forward a copy of his letter to both the Foreign Affairs and the Defence Committees.

The Minister's letter of 1 February 2010

4.19 In his response of 1 February 2010, the Minister confirmed that:

—   there will no longer be an end of Presidency report on CSDP and that, instead, he will write to the Committee with the Government's position following the publication of the Conclusions, in June and November, covering developments in the previous six months, as he did in December; and

—  there will continue to be an annual report on the Common Foreign and Security Policy to the European Parliament each June.

The Minister's letter of 11 February 2010

4.20 In this further letter, the Minister sought to summarise the EU's first annual report on "the identification and implementation of lessons and best practices in civilian European Security and Defence Policy missions, renamed CSDP under the Lisbon Treaty." He began by saying that the report itself is not available publically "because it draws on classified material, including mission planning documents and reports", and that "despite this, the UK strongly supports transparency in the learning lessons process and, as such, we are keen to share some of the main points highlighted in the report."

4.21 The Minister then continued as follows:

"The report reiterates the EU's commitment to the identification and implementation of lessons and best practices, and the continuous learning process essential for the improvement of civilian CSDP missions. The report analyses progress made, drawing on different thematic and mission specific reports from the last seven years.

"Since the first civilian mission deployed in 2003, the report notes that civilian CSDP missions have varied in range (police, monitoring, justice and security sector reform), nature (non-executive and executive), geographic location (Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa) and authorised size (from 16 in Guinea-Bissau to 1641 in Kosovo). The report emphasises the progress that has been made in setting up and conducting civilian missions and how increased coordination between Council Secretariat, Commission and Member States has made this feasible, although it notes that there is still work to be done to improve coordination at strategic and operational levels. We strongly support this conclusion and would expect issues of coordination to be addressed as the European External Action Service is implemented.

"The report considers the lessons learned from different stages of civilian CSDP missions. For the strategic planning stage, the report includes the following lessons:

·@TAB@"the importance of developing a long term approach to Security Sector Reform (SSR) involving all EU actors, international organisations and other donors, particularly with reference to the EU SSR mission in Guinea-Bissau;

·@TAB@"the need to integrate media and communication expertise from the very start of a mission; and

·@TAB@"the importance of pre-deployment training — including devising a common training package/curricula — for all mission staff.

"At the operational and conduct stage, the lessons include:

·@TAB@"the need to have appropriate numbers of trained and expert planning staff contained in the field planning team for new missions;

·@TAB@"the requirement for pre-trained personnel and appropriate equipment that can be rapidly deployed; and

·@TAB@"taking steps to improve the flow of information within some missions.

"The report also made a number of other points for further implementation including:

·@TAB@"formulating more precise mission exit strategies;

·@TAB@"integrating gender and human rights expertise into strategic planning for missions;

·@TAB@"bringing together lessons learned from both military and civilian CSDP missions in a more effective way and developing a software tool, including a restricted website, to store and enable easier analysis of these examples.

"Finally, the annual report highlights broad future objectives and priorities for 2010. The first is to pursue further work on strategic planning to ensure that missions are clearly integrated into an overall EU policy towards a host country and region. The UK is pushing for such a strategy on EU engagement in Georgia, including the EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia. Secondly, to carry out horizontal lessons reports on topics such as EU-UN co-operation and on mainstreaming of human rights and gender across missions. Thirdly, to ensure that all missions include a lessons identified section in their six-monthly reports. These objectives will require careful monitoring and follow-up throughout the year, which the UK will continue to support. We will work to ensure that the EU builds on this first annual report to pursue even more precise lessons in the future, including benchmarks for implementation."

Conclusion

4.22 Over the years, in our previous Reports on individual ESDP missions, on the biennial ESDP Presidency Reports and on the annual CFSP report to the European Parliament, the Committee has pressed for precisely this sort of evaluation of missions. We are accordingly grateful to the Minister for his initiative in writing thus.

4.23 Looking ahead, with a new High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and a new European External Action Service, there are likely to be a number of developments in the organisation and control of such missions. We therefore encourage the Minister not only to provide details of further such reports but also to press for them to be produced in a publicly available format. We see no reason why, eschewing the sort of sensitive material to which he refers, such reports could not be produced, and consider that they would make a significant contribution to the wider discussion of this increasingly important dimension of European Common Foreign and Security Policy.

4.24 In the meantime, for the same reasons as before, we are reporting this information to House and drawing this chapter of our Report to the attention of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committees.

Annex 1: Mandate for the Swedish Presidency

"On the basis of this report and taking into account the European Security Strategy, the incoming Presidency, assisted by the Secretary-General/High Representative (SG/HR) and in association with the Commission, is asked to continue work on developing the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), and in particular:

·  To prepare decisions on current and future missions and operations, civilian as well as military and to ensure their effective implementation and lessons learned processes;

·  To continue to develop civilian capabilities in the comprehensive framework of the Civilian Headline Goal 2010, notably to ensure follow-up to the initiatives on the enhanced effectiveness of civilian crisis management on the basis of key operational aspects outlined in the document "Operational aspects of Civilian ESDP capabilities-follow up to Gymnich in Hluboka", and taking into account the priorities in the "Traffic Lights" paper;

·  To continue work on contributing personnel in line with the commitments made at the European Council of December 2008 as well as building upon the findings of the seminar on national strategies on 11th of June 2009;

·  To explore synergies between ESDP and Justice and Home Affairs, including by highlighting the mutual operational benefit in the fight against organised crime, developing information sharing between ESDP missions and EUROPOL and by strengthening the involvement of JHA ministers and relevant national authorities;

·  To continue to enhance and strengthen mission support to enable the European Union to respond adequately to crises, including by using preparatory measures, improving the timely provision of equipment by developing work on framework contracts and work on a warehouse concept;

·  To make further progress on the arrangements for planning in order to ensure rapid deployment of personnel and equipment, including a review of the concept of CRT in order to make it more usable and comprehensive in terms of personnel categories;

·  To promote the development of civilian lessons learned processes through adoption of the Annual Report on Lessons Learned in November 2009, in view of achieving continuous learning;

·  To continue on-going work within the context of military Headline Goal 2010. Encourage the European Defence Agency (EDA), in close cooperation with the European Union Military Committee (EUMC), to take forward the work on the agreed actions from the Capability Development Plan;

·  To support EDA's efforts to generate and develop cooperative projects and programmes in the fields of capability, research and technology and armaments; and to encourage the agency, in close cooperation with the European Commission, to work towards increased synergies between defence and civilian security-related research activities;

·  To support the implementation of strategies adopted: the European Defence Research and Technology Strategy, the European Armaments Cooperation Strategy and the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base Strategy.

·  To follow up, on the basis of a proposal of the Head of the Agency, the establishment of a three-year financial framework and a budget for 2010 for EDA;

·  To prepare Council decisions for approving the draft EDA/OCCAR administrative arrangement, on the basis of a proposal by the Head of the Agency, as well as an EU/OCCAR security agreement;

·  To explore possible synergies and coherence between the EU civilian and military capability development processes;

·  To promote increased usability and flexibility of the EU Battlegroups as instruments for crisis management;

·  To support a close and transparent cooperation between civilian and military actors/systems in the field of maritime surveillance;

·  To strengthen training in the field of ESDP, encompassing both civilian and military dimensions, in particular through the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) and taking into account national activities as well as the Community instruments;

·  To continue to support the initiative of promoting the exchange of young officers inspired by Erasmus;

·  To continue to promote an EU comprehensive approach to conflict prevention and crisis management in ESDP, in line with ESDP agreed guidelines and commitments, and to ensure the effective implementation of human rights aspects;

·  To take forward work on the basis of the document "Implementation of UNSCR 1325 as reinforced by UNSCR 1820 in the context of ESDP", especially in relation to training;

·  To take forward work to develop the EU capacity on mediation and dialogue, within the broader context of CFSP and as part of the implementation of the European Security Strategy and the EU Conflict Prevention programme;

·  To develop the work on the ESDP contribution to Security Sector Reform (SSR), in particular through the establishment of a pool of experts and by taking forward work on training initiatives and an EU assessment tool for SSR;

·  To take forward work on an Action Plan for security and development as a follow-up to the Council Decision of November 2007;

·  To take forward work on climate change and security as a follow-up to Council Decision of December 2008;

·  To continue to implement the European Union exercise programme, including post exercise reporting of MILEX 09, planning and conduct of CME09, and the start of planning for CME/CMX 10 and for MILEX 10 exercises;

·  On the basis of the "Joint Statement on EU-UN Cooperation in crisis management", continue to promote consultations and cooperation with United Nations in the field of crisis management;

·  To enhance the EU-NATO strategic partnership in crisis management, to ensure effective and practical coordination where the two organisations are engaged in the same theatre; to ensure the mutually reinforcing development of capabilities where requirements overlap, including through exchange of information in the EU-NATO Capability Group; to continue the implementation of the existing framework of cooperation between the EU and NATO;

·  On the basis of the Africa-EU Joint Strategy and the Action Plan (2008-2010), continue to strengthening the strategic partnership between the EU and Africa, including the African Union (AU), in the area of African capabilities for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts;

·  To maintain close cooperation and dialogue on crisis management also with other key partners, in particular the OSCE, the States that are candidates for accession to the EU, the non-EU European NATO-members, Canada, Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United States and the Mediterranean partners of the Union for the Mediterranean;

·  To take forward the dialogue and cooperation with NGOs and civil society in the framework of crisis management and conflict prevention.


8   The "Petersberg tasks" constitute an integral part of ESDP and are set out in Article 17 EU. They cover: humanitarian and rescue tasks; peace-keeping tasks; tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking. These tasks were set out in the Petersberg Declaration adopted at the Ministerial Council of the Western European Union (WEU) in June 1992. On that occasion, the WEU Member States declared their readiness to make available to the WEU, but also to NATO and the European Union, military units from the whole spectrum of their conventional armed forces. Back

9   See headnote: HC 19-xxi (2008-09), chapter 8 (24 June 2009). Back

10   See headnote: (30691) 10665/09: HC 19-xxi (2008-09), chapter 7 (24 June 2009).

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