Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-125)
Professor Mary Kaldor and Dr Bastian Giegerich
12 JUNE 2008
Q120 Lord Crickhowell: In organisational
terms, the vast majority were civilian in nature but had to involve
military planning because the organisational side just was not
there among the civilian participants. Have some lessons been
learned there about the organisation, the co-operation of the
military and civil sides?
Professor Kaldor: There is a military
civil headquarters in the Council that operates on both and I
think it has been relatively good. The problem is more involving
the Commission in the planning. That is the problem. It is the
problem of lack of coherence of the whole of the EU, which will
be partly solved by the Lisbon Treaty—I agree with Lord
Hannay about that—but not completely. One other point about
implementation, because I can see we are running out of time,
is the European Action Service. I think that is going to be very
important and I think we need to think about it as different from
the traditional diplomatic service. I think the European Action
Service should be monitoring these issues, monitoring human rights,
and law and order. It should be a forum of access of local people
to the EU. Instead of diplomacy between states, it should be much
more a diplomacy between peoples or citizens. I think that would
be very important to emphasise in any report.
Chairman: Can I perhaps say we will send
you a copy of our report on the European Union and the Middle
East, which we produced last year, which discussed some of the
points to which you have just referred. Depending on what happens
today in Dublin, we will be looking at the implementation of the
Lisbon Treaty, including the Action Service. We might well write
to you and ask for some written evidence on that.
Q121 Lord Anderson of Swansea: Just
building on Lord Crickhowell's question on implementation, clearly,
the EU has several advantages over NATO in terms of the range
of tools in its toolbox: aid, trade, closer links with the voluntary
sector and so on, which we saw, for example, in Bosnia when the
European Union took over from the NATO mission. The question really
then is that of balance. Certainly the military side of the European
Union has been developed, battle group concept and so on. In your
judgement is there currently the right balance within the European
Union between those military tools which are available and the
civilian force?
Professor Kaldor: No, there is not, and
I am sure Dr Giegerich has a lot to say about that. There is not
enough on the civilian side, as he has already said. There needs
to be a greater commitment, and I am glad the Prime Minister made
that an explicit point in the national security strategy. There
needs to be a greater commitment to policemen, for example, legal
experts, gender. No, it does not have the right balance. There
is one thing I wanted to add, which was in relation to the question
about criteria. I think another capability the EU needs is a legal
framework for this kind of operation. That was one of the things
that we proposed in the Barcelona Report. There are huge problems
of the competencies of international humanitarian law, human rights
law, the domestic laws of individual Member States, the rules
of engagement, the laws of countries where you are operating.
Q122 Lord Anderson of Swansea: That
goes well beyond the capability of the European Union.
Professor Kaldor: The European Union
could develop with a group of lawyers a legal framework which
guides the kind of activities that it is going to engage in—I
think that would be incredibly helpful—including criteria
for responsibility to protect, for example.
Chairman: Some of which did appear in
the earlier documents before the declaration of 2005.
Q123 Lord Hannay of Chiswick: I think
both of you in answering the questions have identified that the
ESS was a pretty good effort in 2003, that it has proved a useful
framework for national politicians, civil servants and the military
in framing their national strategies but that there is a complete
disconnect with the general public, who (a) do not know that it
exists and (b) are in many of their attitudes towards these issues
actually cutting across the direction of the ESS in the sense
that they are not in many European countries, particularly enamoured
of the use of hard power at all, although hard power is a part
of the European Security Strategy. Other witnesses we have had
have identified this gap, the gap of public perception and knowledge
and also the gap of public support, which is far more important,
of course, than the other two because without public support governments
are not going to provide the resources or the political will to
do some of the things that are set out in the strategy. Could
you very rapidly, at the end of this session, if you agree with
that analysis, say how you think it can be remedied? If we assume
that there is going to be a revised version of the European Security
Strategy issued roundabout the December European Council, what
should the European Union and its Member States and civil society
be doing to ensure that this gap is filled, that there is a proper
debate about these issues, and that, in so far as this is possible,
you can begin to get more of a consensus behind the objectives
set out?
Q124 Chairman: I am sorry. I did
not give Dr Giegerich an opportunity to reply to the last question.
Dr Giegerich: Let me say a few words
on the last point and then move on to this one, and I will do
it quickly so we have some time left. I think the biggest lesson
for me, perhaps in a cynical way, from the experience so far in
the EU missions is that whenever we talk about a European capability
for anything, we are talking about national building blocks to
that European capability, and that is a problem we sometimes tend
to forget. That flags up the issue of political will to address
these issues, to create the capabilities that are needed. I would
agree that the EU is clearly more advanced in this field than
in the attempt to create a joined up and comprehensive capacity.
I think that in fact is the great promise of the ESDP. It is its
biggest selling point, in my view, the possibility that it does
create this comprehensive capacity. I am not too worried about
institutional competition in this regard because I think it is
up to governments to look towards the EU and or NATO as tools
to implement their policies, so one should look at who has a comparative
advantage in what situation and then decide which framework to
use, rather than spend time on debating hierarchies and so on.
On the capabilities question, very quickly, yes, there is clearly
not enough of it, I would argue in both areas, civilian and military,
in terms of usable capability—that is an important qualification.
It is a bit unfortunate that the military aspect sometimes almost
steal the headlines. It is just the more headline-grabbing aspect
of it but I think the civilian side is absolutely crucial. To
throw out another example, it is very difficult to find the judges
and prosecutors for some of these missions, because it means if
someone is a judge who is to deploy in a few months from now,
he has to stop hearing cases today, and we are still a month away
from actual use in these operations. That is just to point out
one example. That is a strain on national systems that is considerable,
and it gets worse if there are then delays in these missions and
these people do not get to go. There is also a professional problem
for them. The incentive structure for them to go on these operations
needs to be rethought. In that sense we are still in very early
days, I would argue. If you look—again, we do not have time
to go into the detail—at the report on the civilian headline
goal for 2008, you will see that not all needs that have already
appeared on these operations have been anticipated, so there is
actually quite a bit of scope for improvement there. Coming to
Lord Hannay's question about the disconnect, this is an aside
but I think it would actually be quite interesting to do a defence
Euro barometer, a coherent polling on these issues, which I do
not think has been done in the last five or six years, a specific
thing to get a better sense of where the public actually stands.
I would argue that clearly Parliamentary activity on these issues
is very important, not just because it gives civil society an
opportunity to engage with these issues, but also in general to
raise awareness. While these things will all be helpful, one cannot
find a way round the basic problem that large parts of the population
are not in their daily lives worried by the things that this document
is about and therefore politicians—I do not need to tell
you this—will always find that a difficult case to make
and also one that obviously competes with a lot more pressing
ones. I do not think that is an excuse; I am just walking around
your question, in a way, pointing out the difficulties of bridging
that gap, because I do not think it can be done in the short run.
I think it needs sustained, coherent explanation of why these
things matter to people here, whether it is because of crime,
drugs or whatever the issue is that resonates. I think it needs
coherent effort and I do not think we have seen that quite yet.
Professor Kaldor: I would just like to
say I agree, we need both military and civil. I do think we should
emphasise that the European Union has actually pioneered civilian
crisis management and has made an important contribution in that
respect. On the gap between the public and the lack of visibility,
again, I would like to stress human security. First of all, what
Euro barometers there are show that foreign and security policy
are the most popular parts of the European Union, so making it
more visible for those people who support the European Union could
help the European Union. Secondly there is—and I think it
is probably a good thing—within countries like Germany and
Italy a great deal of opposition to the militarisation, what they
see as the militarisation of the European Union or the defence
component, but I think in those same countries there is a lot
of support for the idea of human security understood as both military
and civilian capabilities contributing to UN—there is a
lot of support for the United Nations—contributing to crisis
zones. I do not agree actually that European populations do not
care because large parts of our population come from South Asia,
from Muslim parts of the world, from Africa. We have a growing
diaspora in Europe who have people back home who really care about
what happens in those regions and will make a real impact on domestic
politics. I just had to submit a paper to the French White Paper
Commission and they want to go for strengthening a Europe de
la défense. Why not strengthen a Europe de la sécurité
humaine? That would bring on board a lot of countries and
a lot of publics that are sceptical and worried about what they
see could be a militarised superpower but at the same time who
really want Europe to contribute to global security.
Q125 Chairman: Professor Kaldor,
Professor Giegerich, thank you very much indeed. We really have
appreciated the evidence both of you have given this morning.
We could obviously have gone on a great deal longer on these very
important points. Thank you again. If you think there are any
things that you feel we ought to know and you wanted to send as
anything else in writing, we would obviously be very happy to
include it in our report. Thank you very much indeed.
Professor Kaldor: Thank you for inviting
us.
Dr Giegerich: Thank you.
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