Key challenges in drive to create defence force

Date: 29/06/2000

By Simon Taylor

THE EU has risen above its internal divisions over relations with NATO during the Portuguese presidency. Now it will be up to France to wrestle with the problems the Union's partners

in the transatlantic military alliance have with the future arrangements.

While the US has reassured itself that the Union's bid to create an independent crisis management capability will not rival the existing NATO alliance, the problem now lies in tackling the concerns of the six European NATO members who are not in the EU.

At last week's Feira summit, Union leaders agreed a set of arrangements for consulting the alliance and the six non-EU countries. The question of relations with NATO as an organisation has been largely answered after France abandoned its initial strategy of trying to keep the alliance at arm's length while the Union's new security and defence policy was being developed.

Work will be stepped up soon between NATO and the EU on a range of issues including security, access to military organisation's equipment and staff, targets for capabilities and permanent relations between the two bodies.

But the involvement of the six European NATO members in the planning stage of future operations using the NATO 's assets is proving more problematic. To ensure the Union's fledgling military arm does not suffer from the lack of credibility which dogged the Western European Union, EU governments have been eager to ensure the Union can act decisively in crisis situations. They have offered to hold regular meetings with the six non-EU countries at the planning stage and allow them to be fully involved in decision-making once operations to which they have contributed manpower and equipment are set up. But at the precise moment when the decision is taken to launch an operation, only full Union members will be involved.

Turkey has reacted angrily to its perceived exclusion. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit immediately threatened to stop his Foreign Minister Ismael Cem from travelling to Brussels for a meeting of the six with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to discuss the new arrangements. Ecevit also hinted he might veto any decision to allow the EU to use NATO assets if a better solution was not found.

Speaking in Feira, Solana insisted the arrangements were not set in stone but were part of a dynamic process which Turkey should try to influence constructively. But France still faces an uphill struggle to win over the Turks, not least because Paris' traditional wariness towards NATO is at odds with Ankara's passion for the alliance and the inclusive treatment it enjoys.

The other major challenge for France is to turn the rhetorical ambition of the 'headline' goals for the EU's new crisis force into reality. Union governments have pledged to be able to provide 60,000 military personnel capable of being deployed at 60 days' notice and remain operational for one year by 2003.

Paris is planning to hold a pledging conference in December where each member state will outline its contribution to the overall goal. But increasing pressure on defence budgets will make the targets difficult to achieve. If they do not, the EU will lay itself open to the accusation that its ambitions in the military field amount to little more than a new set of committees without any tough spending decisions to back them up.

The French may be more successful in the area of defence industry cooperation. President Jacques Chirac heralded the recent German decision to order a military version of the European-built Airbus as proof of the growing reality of a common EU defence and security policy.

If this trend continues, one of the fruits of the Union's new military identity could be better co-ordination of defence procurement.