4 Common Security and Defence Policy
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10748/09
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| Presidency Report on European Security and Defence Policy
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| Legal base | —
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| Department | Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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| Basis of consideration | Minister's letters of 22 December 2009, 1 February 2010 and 11 February 2010
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| Previous Committee Report | HC 19-xxi (2008-09), chapter 8 (24 June 2009); also see (30691) 10665/09: HC 19-xxi (2008-09), chapter 7 (24 June 2009)
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| Discussed in Council | 18-19 June 2009 European Council
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared (reported to the House on 24 June 2009)
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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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