Yesterday, my colleague and former senior MoD official Nick Witney pushed out a report on the future of European security and defense cooperation. Few people have as good a standing to think about European defence issues as Nick. He set up and served as the Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency, the organization established to make European armies spend more money in smarter ways on defence.
What he has to say is truly depressing: “inertia and resistance in the defence machinery”, he says, are thwarting the EU’s declared aim to make a real contribution to global security.
There is a chronic capabilities gap in Europe, as defence budgets are squandered on Cold War-style militaries. Europe keeps almost 2 million men and women in uniform (half a million more than the US), yet 70% of land forces are unable to operate outside national territory.
The total number of troops deployed today in ESDP operations, around 6,000, constitutes a paltry 0.3% of European military manpower. The failure to reform European militaries means that much of the annual 200 billion euro that EU governments spend on defence is, according to Nick, “simply wasted”.
Javier Solana has often been reduced to phoning defence ministers in person to secure a single transport plane or field surgeon. In Aceh, the operation was initially financed on the personal credit cards of mission personnel along with a loan from the entertainment allowance of the British ambassador in Jakarta.
What to do? Nick argues that Europeans will punch their weight – and be worthwhile partners for the US – only if they pool their resources and cooperate more closely. Reviewing the widely differing performances of the Member States (on defence spending, investment per soldier, participation record in operations), he urges the formation of “pioneer groups” of the most willing and able.
The idea, he argues, could be operationalised within the European Defence Agency through the creation of a number of overlapping pioneer groups, which each specialize in areas such as research and technology, armaments cooperation, defence industry cooperation, and the pooling of civilian and military capabilities.
The countries most active in various pioneer groups would constitute a European “core group” on defence – similarly to the “permanent structured cooperation” mechanism, envisaged by the Lisbon Treaty. Countries that do not meet basic criteria (like a minimum 1% of GDP spending on defence, and a 1% minimum level of personnel deployments ) should either commit to catch up, or leave the EDA. That means Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and Malta either need to raise their game, or get off the pitch.
This is not a call for a Euro Army; it is an honest appraisal of what ESDP is really made of, coupled with practical recommendations. With Nicolas Sarkozy having declared ‘l’Europe de la Defense’ a priority for France’s EU Presidency, his namesake’s report should be required reading in Paris, London and Berlin.
