14 The EU and the Horn of Africa: Regional
Maritime Capacity Building
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| Draft Council Decision amending Council Decision 2012/389/CFSP on the European Union Mission on Regional Maritime Capacity Building in the Horn of Africa (EUCAP NESTOR)
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| Legal base
| Articles 28,42 (4) and 43 (2) TEU; unanimity
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| Department
| Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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| Basis of consideration
| Minister's letter of 17 March 2014
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| Previous Committee Reports
| HC 83-xx (2012-13), chapter 23 (6 November 2013); also see (33835) —: HC 428 lviii (2010-12), chapter 11 (25 April 2012) and (35109) —: HC 83-viii (2013-14), chapter 22 (3 July 2013); and (33741) —: HC 428-liv (2010-12), chapter 13 (14 March 2012) and (33759) —: HC 428-lv (2010-12), chapter 8 (21 March 2012)
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| Discussion in Council
| Prior to 15 November 2013
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| Committee's assessment
| Politically important
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| Committee's decision
| Cleared; further information requested (decision reported on 6 November 2013); further information provided
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Background
14.1 European Union Naval Force (EU
NAVFOR) Somalia — Operation Atalanta was established on
8 December 2008, via Joint Action 2008/851/CFSP, as
an EU Naval Force to counter piracy off the coast of Somalia.
It is the first EU maritime operation and aims to protect World
Food programme humanitarian deliveries and to deter and disrupt
pirate attacks on other vulnerable shipping.
14.2 The EU Training Mission for Somalia
(EUTM Somalia) was launched on 7 April 2010.Its objective is strengthening
the Somali Security Forces through the provision of specific military
training.
14.3 These missions are part of a broader
"Comprehensive EU approach" to Somalia, together with
the wider international community, to promote peace and stability,
improve local governance, health and education and encourage political
reconciliation. The wider background is set out in our Reports
under reference.
Council Decision 2012/389/CFSP
14.4 We considered what became Council
Decision 2012/389/CFSP at our meeting on 25 April 2012. The Report
of that meeting contains the full background to the establishment
of EUCAP Nestor, including activation of the EU Operations Centre
for the Horn of Africa and the extension of the mandate and area
of operation of EUNAVFOR ATALANTA.[48]
Our assessment
14.5 We thanked the Minister for having
kept the Committee well informed during the preparatory stages
of this mission, which seemed to have been thoroughly done and
to fit well into the overall EU and international endeavour to
combat a palpable menace.
14.6 Operationally, we endorsed the
importance that the Minister attached to the mission remaining
focused on delivering its specified objectives effectively. It
was also, as he noted, a positive step that the mission was time-limited,
and had a defined exit strategy — though the evaluation
process would need to guard against subjectivity in the words
that the Minister used to define it (with the intent that it "will
no longer be required once its host countries have adopted more
effective legal and policing counter-piracy techniques")
leading to pressure towards making it somewhat more open-ended.
The contribution of British Embassies and High Commissions in
the region to the regular EEAS reports to which he referred would,
we felt, thus be particularly important; the unanimity required
for any extension without an equally well-founded basis was a
further safeguard.
14.7 A later Council Decision extended
the 12 month budget by four months to 15 November 2013. The Minister
for Europe (Mr David Lidington) said that up to 6 June 2013 Nestor
had spent only €3.385 million of its €22.88 million
first year budget: the main reason being "that large premises
and operations anticipated in Kenya and Tanzania have not yet
been established because both Kenya and Tanzania wished to be
offered heavy equipment (such as coastguard vessels) whereas "EEAS's
consistent position has been that NESTOR is a framework for transfer
of skills and expertise, not of equipment". His assessment
was that "once this position — and the value of NESTOR's
offering — is entirely understood, Kenya and Tanzania will
wish to participate".
Our assessment
14.8 Although the Minister did not say
so, we presumed that the four-month extension had been chosen
with a further review in mind. We therefore made it clear that
we expected the Minister then to be able to demonstrate that the
mission had a reasonable prospect of achieving its objectives,
and spending the remaining 85% of its budget effectively: or to
be explaining how the mission was to be scaled down so that its
objectives were more realistic and capable of timely and cost-effective
realisation.
The most recent Council Decision
14.9 This Council Decision approved
a budget for the final eight months of the mission's mandate (16
November 2013-15 July 2014) of €12 million.
14.10 In his Explanatory Memorandum
of 30 October 2013, the Minister noted that, the extension to
November 2013 notwithstanding (i.e. the first 16 months of the
mandate), the budget would still not have been fully spent by
mid-November. The "reasons why it matters", as set
out in his earlier Explanatory Memorandum of 20 April 2012 and
earlier correspondence with the Committee nonetheless remained
"intact". The volume of piracy had fallen by 80% between
2011 and 2012 and not a single merchant vessel had been successfully
hijacked in 2013. However:
"We cannot attribute much of
that reduction to NESTOR's work as the mission has not yet delivered
enough results to be having such a valuable impact. I am inclined
to say that the reduction is mostly attributable to the military
counter-piracy missions in the Horn — ATALANTA, CTF 151,
and Ocean Shield — improved application of Best Management
self protection measures by the shipping industry, the utilisation
of privately contracted armed personnel, and perhaps to improvements
in government in Somalia, albeit from a very low base.
"However it is not sustainable
to maintain fleets in the Horn indefinitely. Doing so is hugely
expensive. Nor can we accept indefinitely the additional costs
which piracy and efforts to counter it impose on global trade
in the form of lost goods, delays to shipping, ransoms paid and
additional security. A sustainable solution to piracy can only
result from measures taken by Indian Ocean states to police their
waters, combat, arrest and prosecute pirates and address the root
causes of piracy, which are chiefly poverty and lawlessness in
Somalia.
"So the case for an operation
such as NESTOR, which costs roundly one thousandth of EU and NATO
military programmes, remains intact.
"The mission has, however,
had difficulty delivering readily the results we wish for. Kenya
and Tanzania remain only arms-length participants in the mission's
work. These states have not agreed formal partnership arrangements
with the Mission, though the mission has engaged with them, for
example by hosting counter-piracy events in Nairobi. We hope that
Kenya and Tanzania will become more involved with NESTOR in future;
that is certainly the intention of the EEAS and the Head of Mission.
"Elsewhere the mission has
delivered results in Djibouti, Somalia and the Seychelles. This
delivery has been at times patchy and work in Somalia has been
handicapped by the obvious security risks of deploying staff there.
The mission has had to adapt its operations so as to achieve what
is possible in each country which was not always what was anticipated
in the Operational Plan. Staff have been moved to where they can
operate best, though such movements have obviously consumed time
and resources. We are encouraged by the work to date of Etienne
de Poncins, who took charge in July with a commitment to improve
dialogue with the EEAS and Member States. The UK's secondees to
the mission have secured a good reputation for their expertise,
though our determination to keep them safe, by ensuring that short
deployments to Somalia are securely managed, has at times restricted
the work they can do.
"As there have been issues
with NESTOR, it is reasonable to ask whether it is worth continuing
with it. My answer to that question is positive. The threat which
NESTOR is addressing is real and its strategy can help to rid
us of the excessive costs of piracy in the long-term. It may be
that we need to persevere with this for some years to achieve
the results we need. But officials will of course be engaging
closely with NESTOR's strategic review, due around the turn of
the year to ensure that the mission is tightly focused and that
the resources it requires are constrained, well-managed and used
effectively. We will of course keep Parliament informed of developments."
Our assessment
14.11 Compared with where we began —
with the Minister emphasising the importance he attached to the
mission remaining focused on delivering its specified objectives
effectively, the time limit and a clear exit strategy —
the situation thus far continued to be deeply discouraging. EUCAP
Nestor had made little discernible contribution to a sustainable
solution — or if it had, then the Minister had told us nothing
about it. The mission might well feel that "it has gained
real traction in Somalia", but did the Minister: and if so,
in what ways that were consistent with its mandate, objectives
and deliverables?
14.12 Moreover, we once again saw the
EU establishing an expensive mission — €35 million
thus far — without first ensuring that all whom it was supposed
to benefit were committed to it. As he noted, Kenya and Tanzania
still remained "only arm's length participants", having
yet to agree the formal agreements without which such missions
remain severely constrained.
14.13 That encouragement was taken from
the appointment of a new Head of Mission, half-way through the
period of operation, with a commitment to improve dialogue with
the EEAS and Member States, reinforcedthe earlier implication
that the previous Head of Mission had been found wanting. Much
was being made of the EU's "Comprehensive Approach".
But it was no good when it came to implementation if that strategic
framework was being undermined by a failure properly to address
the essentials — clear, prior local buy-in embodied in a
written agreement and good mission leadership from the outset
14.14 Instead, what we saw was the ground
being laid for what had originally been conceived as a time-limited
exercise with clear deliverables and an exit strategy becoming
one with which "we need to persevere with this for some years
to achieve the results we need".Such "mission creep"
was far from unique (c.f. EUTM Mali[49]
and EUTM Somalia,[50]
which we also considered on 3 July).Moreover, this statement seemed
to prejudge the outcome of the strategic review due later in 2013
or early 2014.
14.15 We cleared the Council Decision
only because the mission was established until July 2014 and needed
a budget until then.
14.16 However, in doing so, we asked
the Minister to deposit the strategic review in due course and
provide his views on it; then to show what actual results had
been delivered against objectives; and also to address some of
the general principles that were being called into question by
this mission's lack of achievements thus far.[51]
The Minister's letter of 17 March 2014
14.17 The Minister says that he is writing
to make the Committee aware that he understands that a proposal
for a new mandate for EUCAP Nestor will be tabled for consideration
in Council in late June.
14.18 He continues as follows:
"Although a combination of
measures (naval operations, adoption of Best Management Practice
by industry, and the use of private armed security) has contributed
to a significant reduction in pirate attacks in the last two years,
pirates retain the ability to operate freely from the Somali Coast.
The piracy 'business model' has only been suppressed. The international
community has been consistent, therefore, in underlining the importance
of developing the Somali and regional authorities' capacity to
combat piracy independently. The international naval missions
are expected to remain in the Indian Ocean until December 2016
but support for continued efforts thereafter is less certain.
Therefore it is assessed that there may only be a two-year window
to build a more sustainable solution through efforts, such as
Nestor, to build and mentor regional institutions."
14.19 The Minister then notes that:
— Nestor has made limited
progress towards improving the Seychellois Coast Guard and enhancing
the planning efforts of the Djiboutian authorities with regards
to maritime security development, and has undertaken some training
with the Tanzanian navy and maritime police; but
— is widely seen as underperforming;
— there has been little effect
in Somalia — the main area of need; this "relates in
part to an inability to influence the Somali strategic approach
and security constraints"; and
— the newly (July 2013) appointed
Head of Mission "has recognised that improvements are needed
[but] … has made limited progress".
14.20 However, he argues:
"given the range of tasks and
expertise required to enhance the maritime capacity of Somalia
to tackle the land-based factors that enable piracy to continue,
there are few credible alternatives to Nestor. The UN Office on
Drugs and Crime operates in Somalia and the wider region, but
they cannot deliver across all tasks, nor can they request the
assistance of Operation ATALANTA."
14.21 The Minister then says:
"The EEAS published a Strategic
Review on 17th February, which reviewed progress and made recommendations
for the future of Nestor. The Strategic Review is limité.
I am providing it to the Committee under the Government's authority
and arrangements agreed between the Government and the Committee
for the sharing of EU documents carrying a limité
marking. It cannot be published, nor can it be reportedon
in any way which would bring detail contained in the document
into the public domain."
14.22 That said, the Minister then continues
thus:
"This Strategic Reviewpresents
an opportunity to influence positively the future direction of
the mission. The EEAS recognised the shortcomings of the mission
in their Review and recommended a reinvigorated focus on Somalia
in three clear phases. Negotiations in Brussels are ongoing. Member
States broadly support the Review's recommendations. In addition
to supporting the recommendations, the Government will continue
to press for increased attention on core Somali-focused objectives
and measurable outcomes for regular review."
Conclusion
14.23 In November, the Minister said
that his officials would be "engaging closely with NESTOR's
strategic review", and would "ensure that the mission
is tightly focused and that the resources it requires are constrained,
well-managed and used effectively". He also undertook to
keep Parliament informed of developments. His letter is thus
disappointing.
14.24 As he knows, we have been in
discussion with him on several fronts about the "upstream"
scrutiny of CSDP activity, so that the House has more than the
opportunity to scrutinise what is essentially a fait accompli
— in this case, a Council Decision on the eve of the mandate
expiry, recommending that a mission under ineffective leadership
that has made no discernible impact should be extended because
there are "few credible alternatives". There is at
least one: to recognise that, no matter how compelling the context,
and no matter how frustrating the reality, those at the receiving
end simply cannot play their part; and that the most effective
course of action is therefore to cut one's losses. In short,
in the absence of evidence to the contrary, is a further two years
not throwing good money after bad?
14.25 We are not prepared to wait
a further three months. We would instead like the Minister to
provide, now, an unclassified summary of the Strategic Review,
outlining precisely what "a reinvigorated focus on Somalia
in three clear phases" consists of; how much it is likely
to cost and if the budget would be annual and performance-reviewed
before a second tranche was authorised; and, on the back of his
assessment of the various partners' capabilities and approach,
why he believes that, under its present leadership, EUCAP Nestor
is likely to be any more effective than it has been hitherto —
including how effectiveness would now be measured and what sort
of mid-term review would be carried out.
48 See (33835) - HC 428-lviii (2010-12), chapter 11
(25 April 2012); also see (33741) -: HC 428-liv (2010-12), chapter
13 (14 March 2012) and (33759) -: HC 428-lv (2010-12), chapter
8 (21 March 2012). Back
49
See (34664) -: HC 83-viii (2013-14), chapter 17 (3 July 2013). Back
50
See (34518) -: HC 83-viii (2013-14), chapter 16 (3 July 2013). Back
51
See headnote: HC 83-xx (2012-13), chapter 23 (6 November 2013). Back
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