Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-163)
Mr Andrew Mathewson, Mr Bob Regan and Mr Ian Hall
26 JUNE 2008
Q160 Lord Crickhowell: What about
the permanent military EU headquarters?
Mr Mathewson: We still see no requirement,
and at the moment we do not think the French are proposing it.
They are talking about improving the ability to plan and conduct
operations but we have not heard them talk recently about a permanent
EU operational headquarters. If they did, we would still oppose
it on the grounds that if this permanent EU headquarters is to
be competent to conduct the full range of operations it is a substantial
facility and we have those in our national inventories at Northwood,
Potsdam and we have it at SHAPE. We would still regard a permanent
EU operational headquarters capable of mounting this size of operation
as an unnecessary duplication of what we have. I do not think
at the moment the French are pressing it. They are looking rather
more modestly at what are the lessons from Chad or the Congo two
years ago about the EU's ability to plan operations.
Chairman: Some of us are seeing General Leakey
next week and we will be able to pursue this issue with him.
Q161 Lord Boyce: I am relieved to
hear what you say about another permanent headquarters and it
seems very sensible of the government to take that line. I am
sorry to drive Lord Crickhowell's nail out of sight but you try
to avoid the question by saying we have a "now" situation
and in the future things will not be so bad. The fact is for months,
if not for years, we have trying to persuade other European partners,
albeit under the NATO umbrella, to contribute more forces to Afghanistan,
and for those who have some in Afghanistan to contribute them
more to combat operations, but they are not minded to do so. We
have hundreds of thousands of people so-called under arms in the
European nations, well over a million, and we cannot even drive
out 1,000 let alone 60,000. I think Lord Crickhowell's point is
absolutely right. For us this is a "now" problem but
for the majority of the European nations I cannot see any sign
of them ever having the will to commit forces overseas and certainly
not to commit forces to combat operations, other than Denmark
within Europe and France.
Mr Mathewson: I certainly would not argue
with anything you said there and I think that is the value of
the target. We ought to be challenging countries. In some cases
the problem is they have not invested in the deployable capability.
We have over many years invested in deployable capability and
we can sustain brigades in the field in Afghanistan but it is
not something that every European nation could do and we ought
to be challenging them to develop that capability. There is the
question of the politics and that will vary from time to time.
As at the level of planning objectives, I repeat this is a reasonable
objective to be setting for European nations to be able to do.
Afghanistan is a very good case in point and the European nations
ought to be able to contribute in Afghanistan as in Chad or any
other theatre. I do not think there is any realistic prospect
in the near term of Europe putting 60,000 men in the field for
a year at 60 days' notice.
Lord Boyce: I hope that eventually if that aspiration
is put into paper and institutionalised there will be some case
for saying if the European nations sign up to this now why are
you not prepared to do something about contributing the manpower
even if we provide the transport.
Q162 Lord Selkirk of Douglas: Do
you think there has been an improvement in the somewhat difficult
relationship between the European Union and NATO at all levels
including both headquarters and in operations in the field? Do
you see the lack of co-operation proving to be an obstacle to
the implementation of the European Security Strategy?
Mr Mathewson: My answer is there has
been not enough of an improvement. There is modest progress. The
way the French government, and certainly in the recent White Paper,
now talks about seeing NATO and the EU as complementary is a great
step forward. That is exactly what we have been talking about
for many years, seeing NATO and the EU as complementary. They
have had a slightly different vision but it is very helpful that
they are now talking about EU and NATO being complementary. We
are very encouraged that one of the first events the French will
undertake in their presidency is a seminar on EU/NATO relations.
It is good to see France getting behind this agenda and making
it clear that they support closer working. The relationship has
not improved enough. There are still serious problems based around
the well understood issues about differing membership of the two
institutions and about the ability of the two, therefore, to transfer
information across. I think the comfort we can draw from this
is that on the ground, in Afghanistan and Kosovo, sensible planners
will seek out their opposite numbers and work with them, but at
the political level in Brussels there is still not good enough
co-operation and it is a point which ministers make regularly.
I know the Secretary of State made it at the recent NATO defence
ministerial meeting a couple of weeks ago that the level of co-operation
between the two is not adequate and it is putting these operations
at risk. I would not say it is a risk to the implementation of
the European Security Strategy but I would say it is a risk to
the success of the missions in question.
Q163 Lord Selkirk of Douglas: Is
there likely to be more co-operation about non-combat roles than
there is about combat roles? Have you found there is a distinction?
I am thinking in particular of the Germans committing some troops
to Afghanistan but far away from the combat.
Mr Mathewson: I think that takes us into
a different area. That takes us into the question of national
political appetite for particular operations rather than the question
of the institutional co-operation between the two. Certainly it
is the case that when they are looking at the commitment of forces
to operations like Afghanistan, different countries have a different
political appetite based upon their public and parliaments views
about the extent of risk they are prepared to take. It is the
very point Lord Boyce was making earlier, that we do not have
the same level of either physical commitment in terms of the numbers
they are offering or in terms of the risk they are prepared to
wear. We would certainly like to see better burden sharing in
terms of numbers and risk sharing in terms of everyone being prepared
to take on the same operations.
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