THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
Fresh policies must drive Europe’s thinking and planning
How to harmonise national defence and security interests within Europe by Robert Walter MP, Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg/London
The drawdown of ISAF forces from Afghanistan may be firmly in sight, but the Euro-Atlantic alliance still has a lot of work to do. Without a doubt, Afghanistan in 2013 is far different from Afghanistan in 2001. Transition has brought about many positive changes, from increased access to education and healthcare to improvements in infrastructure and economic activity.
A fragile road to stability However, while the progress is encouraging, the process remains fragile. History has shown us that the road to stability is invariably long and tough. Trust and confidence, the cornerstone of true reconciliation, is difficult to build and even more so to maintain. Be it in the Balkans, Iraq or Palestine, we know that stalemate wrought by continuing suspicion can come at tragic cost. Mindful of the past, we cannot afford to be complacent in the future: if we are to help Afghanistan through the next phase, it’s essential we have the right strategy in place to tackle the root causes of the conflict which still persist: extremism, radicalism, illiteracy and poverty.
The EU needs a new Security Strategy The importance of strategy cannot be overstated: without it, solutions are impossible to attain. Unfortunately, the speed and scale of global changes have not always been matched by comparable overhauls in vision and action. In a world which is becoming increasingly volatile, where intra-state violence is
Robert Walter MP has been a British Member of Parliament since 1997. He is also Chairman of the European Democrat Group and Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Born in 1948, he graduated in 1971 from the University of Aston in Birmingham. Before entering the House of Commons, he was an international banker and farmer. Robert Walter MP was President of the European Security and Defence Assembly/Assembly of WEU in Paris from December 2003 until June 2011. In 2011 he was elected President of the European Security and Defence Association (ESDA). He is a member of the board and acting President of the Berlin Security Conference.
growing and new patterns of interdependence are emerging, the rationale for a new security strategy is plain to see.
The EU as a collective security provider? As the US shifts its attention to the Pacific, eyes are turning more and more to Europe to take responsibility for its own security. There is mounting pressure on European states and particularly on the European Union for Europe to prove itself a capable and credible strategic player. At the EU summit in December member states, for the first time since 2008, will reflect on the EU’s role as a collective security provider. The debate is much needed and long overdue. Since its inception in 1999, the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has had a mixed record of success. There have been positive examples of EU deployments but there have also been less successful missions. As a result, there have been growing misgivings about the EU’s ability to develop and maintain credible military capabilities, not least the credibility of standing “battlegroups”. By extension, this leads us to question the EU’s ability to assert a serious and substantive role on the global stage.
Paucity of political will and other shortcomings
British Forces – between tradition and the future. The Queen’s Birthday Parade also known as Trooping the Colour, Horse Guards Parade, Photo: Corporal Paul Shaw, defenceimagery.mod.uk, OGL v2.0 London, June 2013.
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The CSDP’s shortcomings stem from a variety of interlinked and complex factors, ranging from weak institutional coherence to a paucity of political will. The economic and financial circumstances precipitating cuts to defence budgets across 28 nation-states have made it all the more difficult to build the long-term political consensus upon which an effective CSDP depends. Ten years after adopting the European Security Strategy (ESS), the EU has still not managed to agree a clear
