Geoffrey Van Orden MEP
There is little enthusiasm for the EU or for European political integration, yet "the Project" steams ahead relentlessly.
To explain this phenomenon you need to understand the driving elements of the EU. Firstly, the indispensable political will of a small number of governments and officials. Secondly, patience - what Monnet called "small steps". Thirdly, the importance of institutions. Fourthly, the fear of being left out of the club.
All these characteristics have been visible in the development of European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), which is seen as a flagship policy by the euro-federalists - "one of the next great steps in the construction of the Union" - and which, to the alarm of many of us, has now become an accepted and routine part of the international scene. Discussion of ESDP, even in otherwise useful policy analyses, now tends to be an uncritical recitation of the EU's own matter-of-fact narrative. This is politically dangerous.
Attitudes towards ESDP will of course be conditioned by the approach to the EU in general. Those that favour “ever closer union”, a highly integrated state-like EU, will welcome ESDP and seek to justify it on practical grounds. Those that believe that the EU has already gone too far in taking competences from the nations, that are concerned at the constant erosion of British national sovereignty, and attach importance to a close strategic relationship with the United States, will take a rather different view of ESDP. I am firmly of this latter persuasion.
What is ESDP for?
ESDP certainly has little to do with generating additional military capabilities. It is essentially a political project. It is designed to enable the EU to back its foreign policy ambitions with military support and reinforce the EU objective of becoming an actor in its own right on the world stage. More fundamentally, it reaches to the heart of national sovereignty. In terms of national institutions and the core responsibilities of government, you cannot get closer to the bone than the armed forces. If these can gradually be 'Europeanised' then a massive advance will have been made in the direction of a state called Europe. Given the sensitivity of this issue, 'patience' and 'small steps' are clearly relevant.
The origins of EU involvement in defence can be found in the 'European Defence Community' that foundered in 1954. Defence and foreign policy aspirations eventually re-crystallised in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which included 'all questions related to the security of the Union, including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence'. The Conservative Government of the time was confident that this language was merely a paper sop to German and French aspirations and that, in practice, its veto would always be used to block any EU involvement in defence. In retrospect we can see this was a little naive.
Just six years later there was a dramatic change of policy. The agreement between the British Labour Government and France at St. Malo in 1998 was of seminal importance. In a reversal of the position of all previous British Governments, they agreed that the EU should have "the capacity for autonomous actions, backed up by credible military forces". St Malo was the key event that enabled the EU to create ESDP and all that now flows from it.
ESDP is duplicative, divisive and destructive of NATO. It creates no new military forces, merely new decisionmaking structures under the political control of the EU institutions.
Duplication of activity
The most immediate effect of ESDP has been a proliferation of unnecessary EU bodies. As at NATO, there is now an EU Military Committee, composed of national Chiefs of Defence represented on a day to day basis by their Military Representatives. Just as there is an International Military Staff at NATO, there is now an EU Military Staff, and, just as at NATO's SHAPE, there is now an EU Operations Centre. These, of course, are among the institutional mechanisms to which EU ideologues attach so much importance in driving their policies forward.
The most immediate effect of ESDP has been a proliferation of unnecessary EU bodies. As at NATO, there is now an EU Military Committee, composed of national Chiefs of Defence represented on a day to day basis by their Military Representatives. Just as there is an International Military Staff at NATO, there is now an EU Military Staff, and, just as at NATO's SHAPE, there is now an EU Operations Centre. These, of course, are among the institutional mechanisms to which EU ideologues attach so much importance in driving their policies forward.
The negative effects of this duplication are plain to see. Firstly, valuable resources and the time and effort of key commanders and senior staff are wasted. Secondly, differences are generated between those that are involved in one institutional arrangement but not the other. Thirdly, different political signals are transmitted to potential adversaries, offering scope for exploitation of divergences.
EU spokesmen are often at pains to state that NATO remains the cornerstone of collective defence while the EU would just take on limited crisis management operations. This conceals EU ambition. In any case, it would consign NATO to the unlikely territorial defence role while the EU carried out the day to day crisis response Let's keep the EU's hands off our armed forces Geoffrey Van Orden MEP PAGE 9 FORWARD! operations that are so much in demand. NATO would wither away through lack of interest and use. For some, even this is not enough - the proposed European Constitution even includes a mutual defence clause which would replicate NATO's most fundamental guarantee.
If the EU focused solely on the provision of civil assistance, where it has some experience and may be able to add value, it could yet complement NATO's military efforts. But, as this would deprive the EU of the opportunity to develop its military component - a vital characteristic of a fullyfledged state - this division of labour between NATO and the EU is not even discussed.
Competing defence structures
Commitment to NATO is weakened because an alternative structure for international military expeditions is available. Furthermore, competitive deployments into the same theatre of operations, such as Darfur, are inefficient and weaken credibility.
At this time of threat to the democracies, when solidarity is needed, it is weakening for Europeans and Americans to have competing strategic visions or, indeed, to have two defence organisations, with overlapping membership, making competing claims on the same limited defence resources.
Of course there will be times when Europeans may wish to act alone or bear the heaviest responsibility for a particular military action, especially in their own vicinity. But this sort of decision should be taken around the NATO table with the Americans and other allies and with their full support. Recent efforts by the Iranian regime to deal solely with the EU is an example of the dangers of perceived fractures in transatlantic solidarity.
The situation in Afghanistan is part hostage to EU-NATO relations. NATO’s ability to generate the forces it requires to sustain its operations is constrained by competing demands and politically-imposed caveats that limit the operational flexibility of many of those troops actually made available. The US, UK, Canada, Australia the Netherlands, Denmark and Estonia have borne the brunt of combat operations. Both Germany and France have significant numbers of troops deployed in Afghanistan, yet these troops are located in the relatively quiet north, are deliberately constrained from offensive operations, and are therefore not involved in the often fierce fighting underway in the south and east. European allies have been reluctant to provide combat reinforcements. And the demand for more troops in Afghanistan is made even more difficult when the EU suddenly decides to issue a competing call for troops, such as its military mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo. An indication of the seriousness of "ESDP operations" is that, of the 12,000 personnel engaged in four such missions, none have ever been killed or injured as a result of hostile action.
ESDP generates no additional military capabilities
One of the prevalent myths, promoted by the EU, is that it is somehow adding to the sum total of military assets. There are few who seem to understand the fallacy of this.
ESDP is duplicative, divisive and destructive of NATO.
With minor exceptions (e.g. AWACS), NATO owns no military forces, nor does the EU. There is only one set of military forces in each nation for the full range of military tasks. If troops are made available for an EU operation then clearly they are not available for NATO or other tasks. EU talk of a 60,000 strong 'rapid reaction force' or indeed its less ambitious ‘battle group’ concept is smoke and mirrors in that the troops involved are drawn from precisely the same forces that a country might also make available for NATO, UN or indeed national military tasks. ESDP merely places an additional burden on existing armed forces and does not generate any additional capacity.
There is a choice to be made - either follow the essentially French line and destroy the strategic structure that has served us so well for over fifty years or take urgent action to revitalise the transatlantic alliance as well as the natural comradeship of the English-speaking peoples.
Justifications for ESDP
Proponents of a defence-enabled EU often cite reasons why they think ESDP is useful. Firstly, they point to value in having a military force not associated with the United States available for international operations. Here we see the prism of Iraq distorting the longer view. The United States must surely remain our most important strategic ally and this should be a major factor in military planning. There may well be occasions when US involvement is not advisable, but this does not necessitate a role for the EU. As in the Lebanon, UN operations can be led by individual European nations without reference to the EU. In certain circumstances, there is no reason why NATO military operations could not be conducted using just European forces, but with the political support and resources of the Alliance as a whole. This was the essence of the European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI) concept of the 1990s that was cast aside as it lacked the separateness from NATO desired by France.
Secondly, the EU is described as having a wider range of policy instruments available than NATO. For example, it can offer trade incentives, humanitarian aid and development programmes as part of its solution. It is, of course, the nations that have endowed the EU with these "softpower" capabilities. It would be more productive if the EU were to concentrate on this much-needed civil assistance and leave international military operations to NATO. Co-ordination between the two is not a problem if there is political will.
What is to be done?
There is an urgent need for the democracies to generate more defence capabilities, but the response of the Europeans has been to create more institutions. As one former senior US officer put it, the EU places "too much emphasis on the plumbing when there is no water!" European nations already spend very little on defence. Even the UK – among the most active military powers – is spending less now as a proportion of national wealth than at any time since the 1930s. But the UK’s 2.3% of GDP puts it in a super league compared with Germany’s 1.4% or Spain’s 1.3%.
There is a choice to be made - either follow the essentially French line and destroy the strategic structure that has served us so well for over fifty years or take urgent action to revitalise the transatlantic alliance as well as the natural comradeship of the English-speaking peoples.