Gerd Kaldrack, Bonn

Renationalisation is the wrong answer The irrelevance of defence in the CSDP

by Gerd Kaldrack, International Project Consulting - KIP, Bonn

In his speech of 26 July 2012, Mario Draghi, Head of the European Central Bank, emphasised that everything must be done to save the euro. The Monetary Union needs to be fundamentally changed. The only way out of the crisis is to take a chance on more Europe, i.e. to shift more national responsibility to the European level.

No European Security Union on the horizon Little progress has been made on the necessary development of a Financial and Monetary Union. Only the idea of a Banking Union has been seriously pursued, with the collectivisation of debt placed at the centre of the debate. A Transfer Union is on the horizon, but not a Security Union, despite the new global security situation. Russia, China and India are upgrading their armaments. The coast opposite the south of Europe is in turmoil, Egypt is reeling, the Levant is burning, the Balkans and the Caucasus remain trouble spots, piracy threatens global trade routes and, on top of all this, security-relevant climate change is progressing. At the same time, the balance of the global security architecture is shifting. The United States is switching its main focus to the Asia-Pacific region. Its role in NATO will be reduced. Europe must take responsibility for its own security. As a global economic player it must be able to conduct an active Security and Defence Policy for peace and security at its borders and in its areas of interest. This consensus was documented in the Treaty of Lisbon (2009). Global challenges can only be met by Europe as a whole. No EU Member State can do this alone.

Europe needs its own military strength Decisions and concepts abound. In 2011 the EU counted some 1.7 million soldiers in its armed forces. Yet the 1999 project for an EU rapid reaction force composed of 50 to 60 thousand troops failed. It was replaced by the concept of 1 500 to 2 000- strong EU Battlegroups, which offer little operational value and have never been deployed. France and Britain have cut their intervention force quotas, while Germany has maintained its quota at about 10 000 professionals. The 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS) enshrines the concept of comprehensive security based on both civil and military means as a fundamental principle. However, the establishment of an EU civil-military headquarters failed, as did the provision of an EU budget for military crisis-management missions. Instead, each state has to bear its own mission costs. The “Athena Mechanism for common costs” (e.g. reconnaissance) amounted to just € 38 million in 2010. For civilian crisis management the EU as a global player has a budget of € 9.2 billion at its disposal,

Gerd F. Kaldrack, Dipl. pol.sc is Chief of KIP Kaldrack International Project Consulting, which was founded in 1993. KIP is specialised in environmental protection, renewable energies and security and defence matters. Important phases in Gerd Kaldrack’s military career were positions as a helicopter pilot in the Army Aviation, General Staff Course 1973-75, Army Long-Term Planning and Head of the Environmental Protection Division in the German MoD. In 1993 he retired as a colonel from the military and began a civilian career as a consultant and publisher of numerous contributions to the debate on CSDP, most recently of the reader on “An operational Army for Europe”, co-authored with Dr Hans-Gert Pöttering. Photo: private

but only € 0.4 billion were budgeted for the CSDP in 2013. Civil and military emergency operations are conducted side-by-side but remain unconnected. The problem lies in the insistence on the outdated notion of national sovereignty, with each nation having its own army solely at its command.

Sovereignty versus solidarity The result is a reduction of national defence budgets and a restructuring of the armed forces, leading to a loss of skills and shrinkage of the European security and defence industrial base. What the EU needs is sustainable coordination of the armed forces planning and defence budgets of the 28 Member States. It should apply the Lisbon Treaty tools of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PSC) and Pooling and Sharing. The irrelevance of EU security policy is an aggravating factor; however, the civilian sector recently made progress with the inauguration of the EU’s highly modern Emergency Response Centre (ERC) through which all 28 Member States plus five other countries coordinate their disaster response. The Centre cooperates closely with national points of contact, which will have rapidly deployable, international and voluntary “mission pools” at their disposal. The only robust solution would be to remove the CSDP from the intergovernmental process and to turn it into a genuine civil-military common task. Next it is necessary to define the respective tasks of the EU and the Member States and to establish a security budget for civil-military crisis management. With rapidly available forces and predictable financing the EU should be able to assume a level of global responsibility in keeping with its political and economic weight. Sovereignty can only be maintained together.

But so far the political will to further develop the idea of a Security and Defence Union to which nations would hand over a share of their alleged sovereignty has been lacking. Given this situation, fundamental changes or rapid advances in the CSDP are not to be expected. Only a pragmatic approach that avoids the sensitive issue of national sovereignty can pave the way for more integration. Common training is one such approach.

Europeanisation of military training A European training network and integrated training concept based on existing national centres of competence and training structures would have many advantages, in particular major savings and efficiency gains, particularly if they also offer joint civil-military training. No nation would suffer a loss of sovereignty by applying PSC and pooling and sharing to training. Modern, networked, simulation-based education and training methods, although expensive, are particularly suitable, including for mission preparation in the event of an engagement. Scenarios involving cross-border disasters and major incidents requiring joint European responses and concerted action can be simulated, saving time and money, and above all lives. The EU or several Member States at least should concentrate first on developing one or more European educational institutions. Helicopters, for instance, always scarce, are needed in all EU missions: a “European Helicopter Training and Competence Centre” should be developed on the basis of existing training facilities in Germany and France. This approach would also prevent an uncontrolled reduction of national training capacities. A Europeanisation of military training with common burdensharing would be a first step towards taking advantage of the opportunities offered by PSC. The European Council (EC) will be focusing exclusively on the CSDP at its session in Brussels in December 2013. It should clearly define the way forward and set goals for integration, with the Europeanisation of military training as an immediate first step. The success or failure of this EC session will ultimately determine whether this area will have its own “Mario Draghi and markets” working to save the CSDP and to bring the appropriate pressure to bear. The EU cannot just stand by and watch another drama in its vicinity like those in Libya or Syria.

News: A400M Training

A400M Training Services Ltd., a joint venture between Airbus and Thales UK, will offer, under an 18 years contract with the MOD London, a multi-million pounds training services programme. The contract covers all facilities, including the construction at RFA Brize Norton in Oxfordshire of the training school itself, which will welcome the first trainees in 2014. The school - open to the A400M user nations - will train a range of air and ground crews to operate and maintain the aircraft. France and Germany are planning to establish in 2018, in the centre of France, a common A400M training centre open to all user nations.

Comment by Hartmut Bühl

The Franco-German Brigade – a new role?

The French Government’s decision to transfer its 110th infantry regiment – currently stationed in the Black Forest and part of the Franco-German Brigade – back to France in 2014 will certainly mark the end of the Brigade in its current form. Officially this decision was taken on budgetary grounds. But for the French Minister of Defence the reasons go deeper: they are political.

Political reasons The Brigade, once the symbol of Franco-German military cooperation, has always been subject to Germany’s constitutional requirement for military operations to be given prior parliamentary approval, which means that France cannot simply deploy it at will. This “parliamentary reservation” has been a known fact since the treaties were drawn up in 1987, but for Helmut Kohl and François Mitterand the Brigade was above all a symbol that sent a political message to the rest of Europe. Now, it would seem, France no longer sees any point in keeping expensive and well-trained troops stationed in Germany when it cannot deploy them.

Parliamentary reservation A view that is difficult to understand but that is widespread amongst France’s political class is that this “parliamentary reservation” is a device used by the Germans to duck their obligations of solidarity: but it is often hard for anyone who lives in a presidential democracy to grasp the processes at work in a parliamentary democracy and in particular the powerful role of the German Parliament. Seen from the French perspective, it is difficult to comprehend that Parliament should be involved in the decision to engage in a military conflict. The French President refuses to allow Parliament to share his all-encompassing authority over military matters and his powers of command as the Chief of France’s armed forces. Even after the example set by the British and Americans in seeking parliamentary approval for intervention in Syria, François Hollande still believes with regard to matters of armed conflict that only the directly-elected President of the Republic can decide what is right for France.

A successful 25 years In military, human, training and cultural terms the 25 year-old Franco-German Brigade can be deemed a success. Only in one area is this not the case: that of joint and rapid engagements in armed conflicts. There have been sufficient opportunities in Africa and Afghanistan. The Brigade can, however, boast positive achievements in the field of humanitarian interventions and disaster relief.

The decision does not come as a surprise As early as 2009 there was talk of repatriating this regiment stationed in the German town of Donaueschingen: Nicolas Sarkozy was in urgent need of a unit to replace his Pioneers’ Regiment based in Illkirchen near Strasbourg. But Angela Merkel came to his aid, transferring a German batallion from Immendigen to Illkirchen, where it was welcomed with open arms and which it has called home for more than two years now. Whatever happens to the Franco-German Brigade – whether it is disbanded or continues to exist in a new format – it would be fatal if, as a counter-move, the German batallion were to be withdrawn from France.