One year after the infamous terrorist attacks in Paris, and less than four
months after the presentation of the EU Global Strategy and circa two
weeks after the election of Donald Trump, Federica Mogherini unveiled the Implementation Plan on Security and Defence.
It sets out the new level of ambition for the EU, and follows up on the EU Global Strategy in terms of what the
EU must contribute to so that it becomes a fully-fledged stakeholder security
wise. So far, so good. No one will object – who is NOT for a more secure
Europe, at the end of the day? Why not have more robust capacity to respond to
external conflicts and crises, and be more adept at strengthening the
resilience of EU partners? Such ambition was long in the making and perhaps,
just perhaps, this is the moment to operationalise it. We say perhaps as we
have one major problem with the presented document.
It is buried on page 18, and constitutes point 23
of the whole document:
“We should
continue to analyse jointly the threats, risks and challenges faced by the EU,
and
regularly
review our priority actions. This could lead to regular high-level meetings
(European
Council or Foreign Affairs Council, including in Defence format or jointly with
other
relevant Council formations) to address internal and external security and
defence issues facing the Union.”
This passage inspired us to pose some questions
related to the development of the future EU defence.
Firstly, shouldn’t this be on page 1? If “for most European security is a top priority
today” then shouldn’t we start the whole process with working out a common
perception of “threats, risks and
challenges?” As of now, we are supposed to energetically move forward on
common security instruments but how will we use them? Isn’t it, to put it
metaphorically, the cart before the horse? Shouldn’t the development of a joint
Implementation Plan be preceded by a
thorough discussion on the sources of insecurity, especially given the
potential for a US drawdown? And if the latter is to materialise then are EU member
states ready to step up their budgetary defence contributions so that a
credible “defence union” materialises? In short, more co-operation on defence
is welcome but a joint political front on the issue is a necessary
precondition.
Secondly, how will the EU respond to external
conflicts and crises? With what exactly? And if it does then to which ones? To
what extent does this also cover potential missions in the East and not only in
the South? Is there a political consensus for that?
Thirdly, if the EU is to work on capacity
building of partners then the question is similar – where, how exactly, and how
to do SSR better? Can the EU actually do it better as so many others failed in
their endeavours in the past?
Finally, protection of citizens and increasing
the Union’s resilience: how does this square with NATO’s attempt to achieve a
similar feat for the Alliance and the Allies? Will there be competition? Does
the EU really need to cover all security aspects from space to disaster
response and countering arms trafficking? Next month will see the announcement
of new measures on joint co-operation between the EU and NATO – let us hope
these assuage the aforementioned worries related to this co-operation.
Let us be clear. Enhanced EU defence and
security cooperation is not just a positive thing, it is a must. However, we
should not underestimate the threats related to intra-European differences in threat
perception. These must be discussed PRIOR to our development of any “defence
union.” The fact that this issue is buried on page 18 of the Implementation Plan does not convince us
that this has been the case. The cart is now before the horse. This bodes ill
for the future.
Kacper Rekawek and Tomáš A.Nagy
GLOBSEC Policy Institute
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