Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-12-13-Speech-2-383-000"
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"Mr President, can I begin by also thanking Mr Lisek for his report. As I said last night when I saw him, I come from the European Defence Agency where they, too, would wish me to express their thanks for the work that he has done.
We are turning a comprehensive approach into comprehensive action and I believe the External Action Service is uniquely placed for this. We can join up all of the instruments of the European Union and cover conflict prevention, development and conflict resolution. We are putting this to full use in the Horn of Africa and in the Southern Neighbourhood.
Some people try and say that we are facing some sort of fatigue on CSDP, yet this year has been a year of intensive work on this area, with concrete results, and ending with comprehensive and, I believe, forward-looking Council conclusions.
On military capabilities, the 30 November European Defence Agency Steering Board delivered concrete Member States’ commitments in specific projects, including in areas where the Libya crisis showed our shortfalls. This is a good first step towards more substantial achievements next spring, also in view of the NATO Chicago summit which I will attend.
But as indicated by the honourable Member Mr Lisek’s report, there is no alternative to cooperation in this area. Multinational cooperation must become the rule rather than the exception in order to preserve and develop Europe’s defence capabilities. I agree with what Mr Lisek says: pooling and sharing is a means of delivering enhanced capabilities and of offsetting defence budgets cuts.
As the Head of the European Defence Agency, I will continue to make every effort to facilitate cooperation among and between Member States and to increase the global competitiveness and efficiency of the European defence industry.
In July, I presented a comprehensive report on CSDP. It set out the parameters for further work, both in terms of hardware – our military and civilian capabilities – and software – how we plan and conduct operations and engage with our partners. The Foreign Affairs Council on 1 December welcomed my work to strengthen the CSDP.
Member States’ initiatives, such as the Weimar initiative and subsequent contributions, have provided an added impetus to work. I am pleased, too, that we found a pragmatic way forward on the issue of the planning and conduct of CSDP operations. We are now beginning planning for the activation of the operations centre for the Horn of Africa operations by the next Foreign Affairs Council in January. This will allow us to test this tool, with a view to strengthening civilian-military synergies and again to draw lessons for the future.
I believe that we have achieved a lot of progress in working with our partners. In the area of security and defence, the relationship with NATO is essential. It is recognised in the Lisbon Treaty, which is the first of the EU Treaties to explicitly refer to NATO. The breadth of EU instruments can be usefully combined with the depth of NATO’s role on defence. The two organisations can and should reinforce each other’s work.
I have worked hard to establish a good, close working relationship with NATO Secretary-General Rasmussen, to bring the EU and NATO closer through a pragmatic step-by-step approach, while maintaining the overall objective of a true organisation-to-organisation relationship.
The Libya crisis again showed a clear need for this. We work hand in hand in many theatres, and we owe it to our people in the field. I am also pleased to confirm that on capabilities in particular – whether labelled pooling and sharing or smart defence – we have now achieved an unprecedented level of cooperation.
There is no debate about the common security and defence policy (CSDP) this year that can ignore the financial crisis which has led to a wave of defence cuts across the European Union. This has resulted in both the increased focus on pooling and sharing of military capabilities and in the current staff shortfalls we are experiencing in important CSDP missions and operations.
The UN remains, of course, a longstanding partner, and we are turning this partnership into reality: in theatres where both are or could be engaged, in Afghanistan, Somalia, Kosovo and Libya, and through our strategic dialogue. I have also personally engaged on security and defence with our strategic partners, not least regarding areas like the Horn of Africa or in Libya. I signed a framework agreement with the United States of America in June on their participation in CSDP civilian missions and already 60 US citizens under EU chain of command are operating in Kosovo and Afghanistan.
I also want to foster closer cooperation with other partner countries, including contributors and the neighbours to the south and to the east.
I would like to end my remarks with the possible way forward. I think we have to further operationalise the comprehensive approach, by better linking our conflict prevention, mediation, development and conflict resolution activities. CSDP has a vital role to play in addressing forms of organised crime, such as trafficking of drugs, of weapons and, of course, of people. These are directly linked to conflict.
For example, the security threats in the Sahel also relate to the influx of weapons and militias as a result of changes in Libya. On this, the combination of all of the European Union’s tools in a coherent strategy is absolutely essential. We have to pay constant attention to force generation and capabilities.
The Council undertook to make every effort to address this challenge and I will examine innovative ways to improve force generation in order to make proposals in the first half of 2012. Force generation, by the way, means getting the right people in the right place.
Work on military capabilities should continue towards a systematic pooling and sharing, not only as an answer to financial constraints, but also as means of enhanced operational effectiveness in the long term. We also have to enhance the effectiveness of missions and operations.
The EU should act through CSDP missions and operations to add value, on the basis of identified needs, with clear objectives and exit strategies to deliver and sustain results. As long as we can deliver on the existing missions, I am always ready to take forward work on possible new missions – in particular, in regions of such strategic importance to Europe’s security such as the Sahel and Libya.
The common security and defence policy can only be as effective and ambitious as we let it be. It relies on collective political will and ambition to act. It also means that the CFSP budget should be able to respond to the financial aspects of force generation. The European Parliament’s support in the last months has been essential on this, and I would like to take this opportunity to express to all of you my gratitude.
I would like to close by thanking you for your support on the work on CSDP, to reconfirm my continued commitment to CSDP as an integral and indispensable part of the European Union’s external action and, as I began, to once again thank Mr Lisek for his report.
But the demand for the EU to do more and better is getting stronger. We need to be able to respond to the complex threats of today – crises from cyber-threats, energy security and others – and we need to assume our global responsibilities whilst showing real value for money. To deliver value for money, we need CSDP action to be based on coherent and effective strategies and a truly comprehensive approach and equipped with the right capabilities, as was restated in the Foreign Affairs Council on 1 December.
The budgetary constraints force us to save, but they are also a driver of closer collaboration; whether on pooling and sharing of defence assets, joint programming of development aid, or solidarity in the evacuation of European nationals from scenes of conflict or disaster. The message is clear: doing better with less.
The 1 December Foreign Affairs Council endorsed my call to maximise synergies and strengthen cooperation – complementing instead of duplicating each other. I am committed to ensuring that the actions by the External Action Service, the Commission and the EU Member States reinforce rather than compete with each other.
At the meeting of 1 December, we also agreed that the EU needs to improve its operations by more clearly identifying needs and acting with clear objectives and clear exit strategies. The European Parliament, alongside national parliaments and governments, plays an important role in ensuring the democratic oversight of EU foreign, security and defence policy, as recognised in my declaration on political accountability.
I want to focus for a moment on some important achievements during the course of this year.
At the level of structures, we have established the External Action Service and it is now equipped to deal with crises better, faster and smarter. When the Service was launched in January 2011, the Arab Spring required our immediate response. In light of this experience, we have set up the Crisis Management Board and Crisis Platform, which also dealt effectively with crisis situations in Ivory Coast, Libya and the Horn of Africa. These structures are central to our capacity to respond, and maintain their direct reporting line to me while working closely with the rest of the service.
We have also improved the early warning capacity through the Situation Room and the Conflict Prevention Group and we are currently exploring how to strengthen the security policy expertise in EU delegations. All of this has been achieved using and restructuring the existing resources and improving their flexibility and efficiency rather than by seeking other expensive and complex solutions."@en1
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