EUROPEAN DEFENCE AGENCY—STEERING
BOARD MEETING, OCTOBER 2006
Letter from Rt Hon Des Browne MP, Secretary
of State for Defence, Ministry of Defence to the Chairman
The next European Defence Agency (EDA) Steering
Board meeting will be held on 3 October. I enclose for your information
the draft agenda and draft papers that have been circulated by
the EDA (not printed). The final agenda and papers for this meeting
will be issued by the Agency later this week but I thought you
would like to have sight of these drafts.
On the basis of the current drafts, the Steering
Board will be invited to agree as an administrative item (known
as an "A" point) to the establishment of a Defence R&T
Joint Investment Programme on Force Protection as an Ad-hoc Category
A Programme. We have already informed the EDA that we will not
be taking part in this programme as it represents a very high
degree of duplication with our national programme. Several other
Member States wish to participate in the programme and I will,
therefore, be willing to accept the recommendation at the Steering
Board.
The Steering Board will also be invited to endorse
a document setting out a Long Term Vision of the EU's capability
needs. I intend to offer wholehearted support to this work as
a useful common baseline for future planning. As I am keen to
encourage greater harmonisation between NATO and the EU, I will
ask that the document be passed to NATO so that the Alliance may
take it into account when doing similar work.
The final agenda item relates to the Agency's
Priorities and Financial Framework for 2007-09. The Agency is
required to recommend to the Council at the end of the year a
three year financial framework which establishes the ceiling within
which annual budgets can be set. This will be an initial Ministerial
level discussion, noting that there is another Steering Board
meeting on 14 November. The EDA has proposed a framework that
would allow an increase in their staffing levels and an increase
in the Operational budget from €5million in 2007 to €10million
in 2009. Overall, this would allow an increase in the Agency's
total budget from €23million in 2007 to €31million in
2009. I will argue that, while we broadly support the suggested
priorities for the Agency, the work plan needs to be developed
with a sense that the Agency exists in an environment of resource
constraints and that the resource implications of any new piece
of work need to be established, priorities agreed and possible
offsets identified. I will propose that a much lower ceiling be
set and press for more effective scrutiny and controls over operational
budget expenditure.
I will write to you after 3 October to report
on the outcome of the Steering Board.
27 September 2006
| 
