The Future of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and the role of the European Commission

Conference on the Development of a Common European Security and Defence Policy, Berlin

16 December 1999

Introduction

It is a grim irony that in Berlin this week we should be focussing on conflict prevention and crisis management while the tragedy of Chechnya is being played out so nearby. That crisis shows how far we still have to go. But it also illustrates the importance of the journey.

For years, European economic and political success was unmatched by our ability to project a common foreign policy. We talked a lot. We issued hand-wringing declarations. We spent very large sums on external assistance. But only with the Balkan crisis have we begun to engage directly in conflict prevention and crisis management. And our first steps have been frankly uncertain. Quite simply, we have not been organised or equipped for this work. Even where Europe has been able to agree a common line, it has had limited ability to give it practical effect. The European Commission, for its part, has lacked the means or the internal machinery to play an effective role.

The Helsinki Summit last week marked an historic breakthrough. The Heads of Government decided to give practical effect to the ambitions of the Amsterdam Treaty and the Cologne European Council Declaration. They decided to establish a European military capacity to undertake the full range of so-called Petersberg tasks. And this was not just a general intention for some distant future. No. They have decided exactly how many troops they want to be able to deploy by 2003. And they have asked, too, that mechanisms should be set in place for handling civilian aspects of crisis management.

The Helsinki conclusions set a stiff challenge to the Member States, which must now deliver the promised capacity. And they set a stiff challenge to the institutions of the EU. We have not been used to providing rapid practical responses to developing crises, except in the strictly humanitarian sphere. Heads of Government have now asked us to move up several gears. We must be in a position to act fast rather than dithering around while we try to plot a path through the bureaucratic jungle.

All this was long overdue.

The Union has too long been introvert and too timid to stand up for its ideas and values. More is expected of us. Not because, as some critics have suggested, we are motivated by a deranged folie de grandeur: stars in our eyes, but nothing between our ears. The rest of the world expects our economic accomplishments and our success as peaceful and stable democracies to be reflected in our foreign policy. Our citizens do not think of Europe just in terms of balance sheets and GDP figures, of quotas and markets. They expect action where they see our values and interests under threat.

We could have done better in rising to this challenge. After all, when EU governments sign treaties proclaiming a common foreign policy to match the common market and economic and monetary union, they are staking a claim for an effective presence in international affairs and they are stating this claim to politicians and policy-makers throughout the world.

When we do sing from the same hymn sheet, people will listen because we do so on behalf of the world's largest trading bloc, the world's largest aid giver and manager of technical assistance. But they will only listen if we show that we have the means, and the will to use them.

Heavy weight economics, featherweight politics

Why, then, is it that we punch below our weight in world affairs? Why have we failed too often to rise to the challenge of international crises? Why could CFSP be criticised in the press and academic literature as "procedure as a substitute for policy"? How could we allow Maastricht to be so clear on the goals of CFSP, and so vague on how we were to achieve them?

The simple answer is that political will has been insufficient to make action possible. With fifteen Member States, each with a different foreign policy tradition and international interests, it is not surprising that coherent European policy outcomes are hard to achieve.

I do not claim that we should punch our weight because the EU has some superior right to play in the top league. And I am not advocating that we punch above our weight. But we have obvious collective interests, and they are best defended collectively. They lie not just in enhancement of the European GDP, but equally in the political field, where we have a commitment to encourage the spread of those universal values of human rights, freedom and democracy that we came close to losing in the first half of this century but whose vitality has sustained our success in the second half.

Fragmented policy-making by states and institutions vying for the limelight has been a recipe for vacillation. The alternative is to weld all our efforts into a strategic stance; to take a long-term view on how the EU's collective power and influence can be mobilised on behalf of our values. We are not saying that individual Member States do not have their own interests and capacities but that very often they can best pursue interests that they commonly share by aggregating their capacities.

Here we come to a crucial point. If Europe, post-Helsinki, is to play an increased role in military matters in conflict prevention and crisis management, we must not lose sight of the fundamental fact that non-military, as well as military means need to be involved. Sometimes the military dimension is essential and decisive. But the non-military dimension can also be crucial.

The nature of conflict has changed so radically during this bloody Century. Eighty-five percent of the victims of the First World War were soldiers. Only fifteen percent were civilians. The situation in conflicts today is almost the opposite. It's equally the case that with the increasing sophistication and interdependence of our societies, economic measures, the free flow of information and the ease of communication have become ever more important in conflict and in its prevention. So the European Union has to envisage action right across the whole range of the instruments at its disposal military and non-military.

A lesson from the Balkans

I think our experience in the Balkans proves my point. Early EU efforts to stem conflict in former Yugoslavia failed, again largely because we lacked the political will to take the bold and resolute action that was required. Later on, our contributions to restoring peace and rebuilding these torn countries have also not had the impact we had hoped for. Part of the problem was our inability to move fast. Lack of speedy operational presence undermines credibility. Very often what is lacking is not the 'vision thing' but the 'competence thing'. If the lapse between decision and implementation becomes too large, no one believes any more in the good intentions.

This clearly happened in the autumn of 1993 with the joint action to provide support for the convoying of humanitarian aid in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Council spent four months discussing whether to cover the cost of the operation by the Community budget or on a shared national basis. In the meantime, winter ended as winter does, ever year, with the population denied the reinforced humanitarian aid they should have received.

We simply must do better than this. I hope that we have started to do so in Kosovo. We should keep in mind that small, fast, well-targeted operations are often more successful than massive action that comes too late. Our citizens rightly expect the European Union to prevent, or at least to manage effectively, conflicts in its own backyard. It is no wonder that "Brussels" is blamed if the EU is not able to ensure the protection of basic human values near the heart of Europe.

Our failure to do so costs the world and us, quite frankly, too much. When we do not play an effective proactive role in world affairs, there can be huge costs in terms of helping refugees, in clearing mines, in rebuilding societies after the bloodshed has ended. Not to mention the appalling cost in human lives and well being in places where we have not acted or failed to act in time.

There must be less fire fighting and more concentration on the causes of the fires. We must find ways to use strategically our immense economic influence so as to prevent new fires from starting and addressing the reasons they started in the first place. Europe needs not only a crisis management capability but also a conflict prevention policy.

Member States today clearly recognise the benefits of collective action, wherever it is appropriate, rather than unilateralism. That is what the EU is all about. There are lower risks and costs involved in going it with others and the collective weight of the Union is greater than the sum of the individual national parts. That is why we signed up to Maastricht, Amsterdam and now Helsinki.

Helsinki reports

I believe Helsinki is the beginning of a coherent and practical European response. Next year's CFSP agenda will be operational. The elements of effective European response to crisis are now going to be created. The agenda is about substance not procedure. Helsinki may not yet provide us with all the answers, but it gives me as Commissioner for External Relations a personal agenda and a personal challenge.

You have all read the two progress reports to the European Council, so I can skate over the detail of the texts and concentrate on a brief summary of implications for the Commission.

The first text was on security and defence. This covered decision-making, military capabilities, the headline goal of a 50-60,000 person capacity for rapid action, and co-operation with partners and with NATO. The objective is for the Union to have an autonomous capacity to take decisions and to launch and then to conduct military operations "where NATO as a whole is not engaged". This is not a threat to NATO. The suggestion that Javier Solana, one of the greatest of NATO Secretary Generals, would put his name to any policy that might damage that organisation is seriously misguided. It is a vital concern of his and mine that whatever we do should not undermine NATO. It is also important that the views of military commanders who will have to make these arrangements work on the ground - should be fully taken into account.

It is vital too, as I have said before, that we should not inadvertantly allow the language we use to alarm opinion in the United States. What we do should strengthen the transatlantic relationship, not weaken it, by demonstrating to the United States and Canada that Europe is prepared at last to shoulder more of the burden of her defence.

Strengthening of capabilities is a key component. The scale and type of military force needed for crisis management operations are clear. A great deal of work has been done in the WEU to assess where gaps in our current (under) performance are to be found and how to fill them.

The Commission has no competence and no ambition in the military area, but there will always be a substantial non-military component before, during and after crises. This is where the Commission has expertise and I am determined that we should play our full part.

A European security and defence policy, to be operationally effective, needs the support of a number of complementary building blocks. The building blocks are mainly managed at national level. The Commission has an important role to play in promoting a favourable environment at European level, and ensuring there is a minimum of duplication and waste.

For example, a European security and defence policy cannot be developed in the absence of a competitive and open European defence industrial and technological base. This is also in the interests of the European Union's partners. We in the Commission can contribute to this with a range of instruments in areas like public procurement, the internal market, research and competition.

The second report was on civilian aspects of crisis management. It identifies existing crisis response tools both at Union and national level and examines how synergy can be improved. The idea is to bring together national and European capabilities, and to establish an effective mechanism for rapid co-ordination and deployment.

Our experience with humanitarian aid, election monitoring, police deployment and training, border control, institution building, mine clearance, arms control and destruction, combating illicit trafficking, embargo enforcement and counter-terrorism shows how comprehensive the Commission's roles already are.

Potential for community action

As the initiator of community policy and its subsequent manager, the Commission has five goals: to be actively involved in policy shaping in all pillars of the EU, to lead where we have Treaty competence, to improve our capacity for rapid implementation and delivery, to enhance the contribution of Community policies to conflict prevention and, finally, to ensure the industrial base of a credible security and defence policy.

In the first pillar, when the Commission prepares a proposal for the Council, there is extensive research into common interests. By contrast, the preparatory phase of decision making in CFSP has been practically non-existent. The Common Strategies, established as an instrument at Amsterdam, constitute an attempt to address this weakness. But we still have a long way to go to achieve real convergence in substance between the perceptions of national and European interests. It is in the nature of things that this is even more difficult to achieve in situations of crisis and potential conflict.

Even where there is a shared assessment of a potential conflict, the problem is deciding when and how to take action. Too often preventive diplomacy tends to focus on situations where violent conflict is already likely or imminent and to devise strategies designed to address the immediate threat of violence. While such strategies may make a vital contribution to preventing the outbreak of violence in the short term, they are unlikely, in themselves, to address the underlying causes of conflict.

Policies for long-term structural prevention may include promoting democracy, good governance and human rights. They can take the form of supporting economic development and provision of basic needs (health, welfare, housing, and so on), or of encouraging regional political and economic co-operation, creating ties through trade and other forms of cross border exchanges. They may involve encouraging the reform of judicial systems and security forces, or environmental protection to achieve sustainable economic policies.

Let me give some examples.

Our development co-operation programmes, (the reconstruction assistance for the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States), should all contribute, explicitly or implicitly to reducing the potential causes of conflict in the countries and regions covered.

In all our programmes, there is a clear conditionality linked to our assistance (for example, the human rights clauses in the Lomé Convention and in our Partnership and Co-operation Agreements with the NIS, and the Copenhagen criteria for EU accession, now extended with clarifications to Turkey). Figures show that assistance to states which do not respect the conditions set has been slowed down, whereas it has generally been strengthened, over time, to those showing a positive trend towards fulfilment.

The Union has also developed quite an arsenal of sanctions and restrictive measures. These range from restrictions on visits and diplomatic contacts through the suspension of aid or trade privileges to fully-fledged sanctions or embargoes, stopping trade, blocking transport and freezing financial assets and transactions.

Then there is practical conflict resolution. In Central Europe, in the context of the first Stability Pact launched in 1992, we mediated on the Gabcikovo dam project. Building on the many and varied actions which it has already undertaken in the Balkans, the Union has recently launched with other countries a new Stability Pact initiative under the authority of Mr Bodo Hombach. We have designated a number of special envoys; Miguel Moratinos for the Middle East Peace Process, Aldo Ajello for the Great Lakes, Wolfgang Petritsch, who has just recently taken over as High Representative in Bosnia, in Kosovo.

And then there is support for human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Respect for human rights is one of the cornerstones of the Union. It is explicit in the Treaty. I am keen to ensure that our collective foreign policy is consistent with this - not because human rights are a European discovery, or because we can claim a monopoly of respect for them. Human Rights, as I said earlier, are universal.

Promoting human rights and democratic values is a sensible investment, economically and strategically. Free societies tend not to fight one another or to be bad neighbours. Countries that treat their citizens decently are the best international political and trade partners. So there shouldn't be any contradiction between wanting better human rights and wanting to trade.

We must back up our policies and our declarations with projects that will lead to improvements on the ground. The resources available to spend on human rights and democratisation have grown dramatically. In 1987, we had only 200,000 ecu available for specific human rights activities. Today the European Initiative on Democratisation and Human Rights amounts to 100 million euro - by my calculation a 500-fold increase.

And that is only a fraction of the overall amount which the European Union can spend in support of democratisation, good governance and institution building through our co-operation programmes and the European Development Fund.

The bigger the EU carrot on offer, the greater the likelihood of EU pressure bringing results. There is little doubt that the carrot of EU membership has acted as an incentive to all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to improve their democratic structures.

The political-economic nature of many of these areas of EU action highlights the importance of Community policies as instruments for conflict prevention and the need to integrate them into wider strategies. Again, this is where the Commission comes in. But we need to make our goals and our intentions explicit.

Instruments for non-military action

In my view, we need headline goals for non-military action to match those in the military field.

A comprehensive inventory of Member State and EU civilian capabilities is being drawn up. It provides a first basis for our efforts in this important field.

• In the area of humanitarian assistance we already have a joint capacity: through ECHO there is a constant co-ordination effort on emergency assistance, disaster relief, technical and emergency management support;

• We must now do the same for emergency and rescue services: focussing on preparedness, provision of logistical capabilities, search and rescue, population safety, radiation protection. We need to define, in each of these areas, specific objectives;

• In the same way, we need to set a target for the number of civilian and military police we can mobilise for training and deployment in specific missions (eg MAPE in Albania, UNMIK in Kosovo). At Helsinki the Heads of Government set a goal for troop deployment. That needs to be matched by paramilitary and policing capacity;

• Then there is mine clearance and de-mining: We need to be able to launch clearance operations rapidly, and we need to be able to offer assistance to victims. We also need to enhance research in sensor and detection technologies. That sounds less exciting, but it is an important goal, too, if we are to do the job now being asked of us;

• As we have discovered in Kosovo, there is much more to be done in identifying resources for post-conflict rehabilitation and reconstruction, and giving ourselves the capacity to co-ordinate and mobilise those resources. I am speaking here not just of physical rehabilitation or reconstruction, but also of actions to promote de-militarisation, 'micro-disarmament', support for civil society, and so on. This is a central task;

• In our support for human rights and democracy, we should also be able to draw on clearly identified resources. We need to be able to mobilise human rights monitors, electoral observers, media advisers and institution-builders with various backgrounds;

• Finally, we should also be clear on where to turn, and what we can offer, in situations where there is scope for mediation, arbitration, fact-finding or specific confidence-building missions.

Member States cover these issues in different ways. This speech is not the place to propose specific goals in each of these areas. That is a matter for discussion with the Member States. But the approach is surely right. Just as, in the military field, the Heads of Government have set themselves a clear objective, so in the accompanying non-military field we need to sharpen up our intentions. What exactly do we want to be able to do? Once we have decided that we must define, in detail, the resources we need to do it, and set ourselves a deadline for assembling them. That is what I mean by establishing non-military headline goals.

An effective European policy will require vastly improved co-ordination. The Helsinki European Council recognised this and tasked the incoming Presidency with pursuing work on the co-ordination of non-military crisis management to complement the military structures. I believe that the Council's structures and work would be usefully complemented by a Commission crisis centre, supported by a rapid reaction fund. We must work together to provide coherence in policy areas where we share extensive responsibilities. We must work to make sure we know where the synergies are, for instance, where one country's helicopters (military) can help deliver another's (civilian) medical teams and how, for example, the Commission's humanitarian aid can be mobilised fast and effectively, and those delivering it protected from physical harm.

Another major challenge in establishing a credible CFSP is continuity. The Presidency changes every six months and so, therefore, does responsibility for representing the Union in CFSP matters. The appointment of Javier Solana as High Representative and his task of assisting the Presidency is thus crucial for the enhancement of CFSP at the highest level.

The Commission has an important role and responsibility in achieving, with the Council, a coherent external representation. Some 160 countries are accredited to the European Communities, directly to President Prodi. In most of these countries Commission Delegations are the only permanent part of the Troika.

So the Commission's 128 Delegations add to the EU's profile in many parts of the world, where coherent EU policy is expected and welcomed. Their role gives them a specific and original status in the diplomacy of the Union. One of my ambitions is to help shape our delegations and our officials in Brussels into a more structured and co-ordinated external service for the EU.

Conclusion: moving on from Helsinki

I have concentrated mostly on the weaknesses of the past and our intentions to overcome them. In conclusion, let me turn to the future. I have six remarks to make.

First, Helsinki announced a new phase in the rapid development of ESDP, but a number of key decisions of relevance to the EU and to the Commission still need to be addressed. There are arrangements to be agreed on participation in decision shaping, taking and implementation - just where non-EU European NATO members, non-NATO European Union members and a series of countries close to us in outlook and aspiration fit in.

Second, whatever the EU does, our decisions affect our NATO allies too, and we must be sure that their concerns are taken fully into account. They do not so much fear the success of a European Security and Defence Policy as the risk that we fail to deliver. For them, for example, our American friends who have long pressed us to do more, the worst of worlds would be one in which our rhetoric excited expectations that we failed to match. That would encourage the unilateralists and the isolationists in Washington. So it is to everyone's advantage to ensure that our common policy works.

To do this we need to develop a cooperation and co-ordination reflex, not just within the EU, but within the other major forums of international affairs and with our key partners. We have to make a solid and focussed contribution in those international organisations and institutions which are also active in conflict prevention and crisis management, like the United Nations, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe. It is vital for the Commission and EU Member States to use their individual and collective resources in this way to defend the specifically European interest.

Third, where do I think we should be focussing our efforts in the coming weeks and months? I have been quite clear. The Commission has no military expertise or ambitions, but it has a role to play in ESDP through its formal competence, its broad experience and the money it manages.

But in conflict prevention and crisis management, time is often of the essence. The new Commission has begun work to try to improve the effectiveness and speed of response of instruments in crisis situations. It is a big job. In many respects I think that any progress here would represent the biggest contribution that I could make to our rather more heroic objectives. The Commission has excellent staff, though it suffers as I've said before -from a culture of lousy procedures. I reiterate, I am committed to improve our procedures and our performance.

Fourth, the Community contribution is crucial to shaping the security and defence policy environment - the Commission's role as policy initiator in research, the internal market and procurement, and thus its role as catalyst of convergence in the defence industry - an essential base of ESDP; armaments markets, where improvement of the competitiveness of European defence industries is at stake; trade in defence related products. The EU member states import from the US seven times more armaments than they export. Each Member State has its own duties on defence imports. Community action seems to me inevitable and essential if we are serious about our ambitions..

Fifth, most of the crises we face are caused or accompanied by an appalling disregard for individual or collective rights. This cannot be tolerated on the European continent; it should not be tolerated anywhere. This is not a legal matter, but an issue of politics and public morality. It involves, as I have said, universal values, which are an essential part of our cultural heritage and the basis of the integration process in Europe.

I have stressed my belief in the promotion of a role on conflict prevention for the Union. This means helping people and their societies to move towards good governance and economic prosperity through reform. This is where we can make a difference. This is where we can draw on our instruments, and on our own experience. If we fail in our task at this level, then it may well fall on us, as a Union, to take the appropriate, but much more onerous, action under the military provisions of the ESDP.

Sixth and finally, to achieve enhanced performance and to end the mismatch between our capabilities, our practical policies and the expectations of our citizens and partners throughout the world, we must be explicit and decisive about our aims.

There are two aims if we are to translate our economic weight into political clout. We need headline goals for non-military mechanisms like those we have set in the military sphere and we need to be sure of being able to deliver on them.

To deliver in a world where the CNN factor and the BBC World contribution, the electronic and the written media, are already now challenging EU foreign services to explain and justify to the public our international policies and practice. Foreign policy is not solely a matter for quiet and confidential dialogue in chancelleries and conference rooms. It is too important to be left to diplomats. The public want, deserve and demand to be involved and informed. Like it or not, that is today's and tomorrow's world and we had better get used to living in it. To shape policy in this world, we should be more open where we can be about what we are trying to do and what we are able to do, which often falls short of what the public conscience wants us to do. And more openness means that we in the Commission should have a closer and more constructive relationship with the foreign policy academic community and with the appropriate think tanks. I shall be making some proposals in this area in the New Year. For the mean time, I welcome the chance of talking to you today and look forward to hearing your views.