EUROPEAN DEFENCE AGENCY—STEERING
BOARD MEETING, NOVEMBER 2006
Letter from Des Browne MP, Secretary of
State, Ministry of Defence, to the Chairman
The next European Defence Agency (EDA) Steering
Board meeting will be held on 13 November. I would therefore like
to inform you of the main items I expect to be discussed at this
meeting. 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 only during the week beginning 6 November, following an
official level Preparatory Committee meeting, thus I am not able
to provide these to you at present.
Subject to further work in the Preparatory Committee,
the Steering Board will be invited to agree three items as an
"A" point. The first of these, Revision of the Financial
Rules of the EDA, is the output of a nine month consultation process
involving Finance experts from participating Member States, a
process in which MOD officials have been heavily involved. I will
therefore be willing to accept the Revision at the Steering Board.
The second "A" point deals with the
Modalities for the establishment of the EDA Staff Committee. The
EDA Staff Regulations provide for the establishment of a Staff
Committee, and this point defines the way in which this will be
established. I fully support the establishment of such a committee
within the EDA, and will be willing to accept this at the Steering
Board.
The final "A" point deals with the
draft EDA 2007 budget. The proposed budget is lower than that
for the current year. I informed Javier Solana in a letter dated
26 October that I supported the draft 2007 budget, and will therefore
accept this point at the Steering Board. However, this "A"
point is subject to the General Affairs and External Relations
Council approval of the EDA 2007-09 Financial Framework.
The next agenda item is on the Defence R&T
Joint Investment Programme on Force Protection. As I informed
you in my letter dated 27 September, 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. However several other Member States wish to participate
in the programme, and I will therefore support the establishment
of this Programme at the Steering Board.
The EDA will next ask the Steering Board to
approve its 2007 Work Programme. The 2007 Work Programme is in
line with the Agency's priorities, as agreed at the Levi Steering
Board held on 3 October, and I will be giving it my support at
the Steering Board.
The next agenda item deals with the Indicators
and Strategic Targets work being conducted by the EDA. I regard
this work as important in encouraging participating Member States
to improve their levels of defence expenditure and meet appropriate
national targets, enabling them to contribute more fully to ESDP
and other operations. Currently UK spending exceeds the national
targets which the EDA has proposed. The EDA have also proposed
a collective target of increasing the percentage of collaborative
R&T spending to 20%. I have doubts as to whether this target
is realistic and I would certainly not support collaboration for
its own sake. But noting that it is not binding on individual
Member States I am content to accept it as a long term collective
aspiration if it is part of a deal that sees worthwhile national
targets accepted by other participating Member States. I feel
it is important that other Member States are accountable for shouldering
an appropriate portion of the security burden, and will therefore
support the adjusted list of indicators and strategic targets.
The final matter on the agenda is that of the
Software Defined Radio programme. The EDA may bring an information
paper on the programme to Ministers; but this is subject to further
discussion at the Preparatory Committee.
I would finally like to take this opportunity
to thank both the Lords and Commons scrutiny committees for their
comments on the MOD scrutiny guidelines which I sent you on 28
September. We will review our guidelines in the light of these
comments and I will send both Committees a copy of the new edition.
I will write to you after the 13 November to
report on the outcome of the Steering Board.
1 November 2006
Letter from Des Browne MP to the Chairman
I wroteto you on 1 November about the meeting
of the Ministerial Steering Board for the European Defence Agency
(EDA). I am now writing to inform you of the outcome of this meeting.
I enclose the final versions of the papers that
were considered at the 13 November Steering Board (not printed).
As I highlighted in my previous letter there were changes to these
papers following an official level meeting prior to the Steering
Board. Additionally, business in the Steering Board was affected
by discussions within the General Affairs and External Relations
Council (GAERC) prior to the Steering Board.
The main change was that the "A Point"
on the EDA 2007 Budget was not discussed in the Steering Board
because the GAERC did not approve the EDA 2007-09 Financial Framework.
The GAERC was unable to agree on how quickly we should allow the
Agency's operational budget to grow. My position was that we could
not support the operational budget increasing to €10 million
by 2009 as proposed by the EDA. Not only did this amount to 100%
increase in the Operational Budget over three years, but the EDA
was unable to justify precisely what it would spend the money
on. The GAERC was unable to reach a consensus at any lower level
and therefore agreed to postpone by another year setting a three
year Financial Framework for the Agency. In the absence of a legally
binding three year Framework the Steering Board was not competent
to adopt the 2007 budget, and therefore this was adopted by the
GAERC itself. While the operational portion of the 2007 budget
has increased, the overall EDA budget for 2007 (comprising the
operational and functional budgets) is slightly less than that
for 2006.
I believe it is important that the EDA understands
that it is operating in a resource constrained environment, and
that any requests for additional funding must be based upon clear
evidence that they will provide value for money. Indeed, the UK
argues that the Agency does not need a large operational budget
with which to "pump prime" collaborative projects or
commission research in its own right and should operate by facilitating
collaboration between interested Member States. This vision of
the Agency is not shared by all participating Member States and
this is the underlying reason for the GAERC being unable to achieve
a compromise.
A Written Ministerial Statement from the Minister
for Europe, Geoff Hoon, provides a report on the outcome of the
GAERC, including the matter of the Financial Framework (Official
Record, 21 November 2006: Column 40WS). A copy is attached at
Annex A for ease of reference (not printed).
The attached commentary outlines the discussions
that took place in the EDA Steering Board on 13 November (not
printed).
I also enclose two Explanatory Memoranda (not
printed) covering: the Annual Report by the Head of the European
Defence Agency to the Council, which was noted by the GAERC; and
the Council Guidelines for the European Defence Agency's work
in 2007, which were adopted by the GAERC.
27 November 2006
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