EU Security Institute calls for 300k strong army; deployable before political OK

[He3]

The EU's official Institute for Security Studies has perhaps jumped the gun on one of Ireland's referendum sensitivities with its latest publication.

The Institute has a low public profile and has not featured in Irish media before today. Now that changes with a bang. Pat Leahy in the Business Post summarises the EU ISS's new report, issued to mark the tenth anniversary of the EU's Security and Defence Policy: What Ambitions for European Defence in 2020?

The report, with a foreword by Javier Solana, calls for a 'more robust' EU military capacity.

It calls for a 360,000 strong EU military force, sufficient to ensure that at any given moment 120,000 soldiers are ready for deployment. In a recommendation that will send shivers down Micheal Martin's spine, the Institute wants this force to be deployed before all the necessary political decision making has been completed. This it says is in order to 'minimise delays'.

The Paris based Institute describes itself as an agency of the EU on its website. Pat Leahy seems unaware of this, saying it is not an official EU body. He describes it as influential and indicative of official thinking 'among many in EU foreign policy circles'.

Some contributors consider that moves in the recommended direction can happen under the existing treaties, while others believe the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, with its extensive changes to the defence functions of the EU, would be important to achieving their goals.

The report concludes that the combined defence budgets of the 27 member States - €200 billion - 'should' be adequate.
Sunday Business Post | Irish Business News

EDIT: I have pasted selections from the report below. Newcomers to the thread should be warned that it ran into some fairly determined derailing efforts a few pages in.

Lisbon is a long treaty, and one of its longest sections deals with the sensitive topics of military capacity building under an EU flag.

The government has characterised those who draw attention to this part of the treaty as being people talking about conscription. That is too often an excuse for avoiding any discussion of where the EU is going or how the rest of the member States see the effect of the Lisbon changes in this important area.

The government does make some carefully worded claims in the Lisbon White Paper that seek to reassure us:

. 'The Union is not a military power and its member States have no desire to move in such a direction'

and

- There is no proposal for the creation of a common defence, nor is there any prospect of such a proposal in the foreseeable future.

This thread focusses on the views of the official EU Institute responsible for analysing and making recommendations for action in these vital fields.

Sadly much of the thread was not very enlightening (!) so I have brought together here some of the extracts from the Institute's publication - a report into current thinking across a range of member States - in the hope that people can refer to them and assess the reliability of the government's White Paper comments quoted above. There are separate threads on Lisbon's mutual defence clause and related topics.

The report begins with a quote from Thucydides' History of the Peleponnesian War - 'For those who make wise decisions are more formidable to their enemies than those who rush madly into strong action'.

Those who go looking for enemies generally find them sooner or later. So the report later says in more prosaic tones:- The weapons of the future require major investment in new technologies by virtue of which the tools of military force will be transformed...

Here is a flavour of one of the report's ten recommendations:

At the outset comes a challenging comment for those of us who still believe voting changes anything:

The following ten points are based on the additional assumption that the main provisions of the Lisbon Treaty on CSDP and ESDP can and should be applied, irrespective of whether or not the treaty comes into force any time soon.

Here are some excerpts from what follows:

"5. There is a broad consensus among the authors that EU autonomy is implicit in the entire thrust of European security and defence policy since St Malo. This should imply in the years to come a number of permanent structures: a formal College of Defence Ministers chaired by the EU 'Foreign Minister'; a European Security and Defence College with its own budget and premises to train all personnel in a common strategic culture of the Union; a European Command to plan and conduct the Union's military operations, alongside a civilian command and an integrated civil/military capability; joint manoevres on the ground for European forces.

The EDA and other relevant EU agencies should also be equipped with means commensurate with the EU's international ambitions.

[That sounds like it could be expensive.]

Setting up the civil/military autonomous command for EU missions is the most urgent task. This should be followed by intelligence, to be gathered directly through a European agency.[...]"

'A common budget should be established, to pay for the common structures and to finance a significant part of the ESDP military missions, namely providing logistical support, in particular transport. This would notably require suitable funding arrangements for Battlegroups to be devised, so as to share the burden of battlegroup readiness and operations fairly and squarely.'

The EU should therefore set itself as a strategic target by 2020 of having at the ready a very sizeable force with the adequate equipment....The target of 60,000 troops (i.e 180,000 allowing for rotation) should be met as soon as possible. but the EU's ambition should be to double it by 2020.

The ambition for the Union by 2020 should not be a European mini-defence project spearheaded by the most militarily capable member States, but a powerful foreign, security and defence policy able to pull together, in a coherent and consistent way, the weight of all member States and of all the European institutions.

Finally take a deep breath for this one:

'Broad as it already is, it is unlikely that the geographic scope for ESDP missions will become much wider: the EU acts independently of NATO in the framework of the UN and has deployed missions not only in Europe, but also in the Mediterranean, Africa and other regions of the world. Afghanistan must be seen as an exceptional case of EU states' involvement in a NATO expeditionary mission rather than the rule. Conversely 'Europeanising' EU member States' contributions to UN missions - Lebanon being a case in point - would not necessarily mean any significant degree of perimeter expansion.'

...

I wonder what Thucydides would have made of all this.

[MrFunkyBoogaloo]

...calls for a 300,000 strong EU military force, sufficient to ensure that at any given moment 100,000 soldiers are ready for deployment. In a recommendation that will send shivers down Micheal Martin's spine, the Institute wants this force to be deployed before all the necessary political decision making has been completed. This it says is in order to 'minimise delays'.

Ireland, get ready to sell our Neutrality down the river, let's watch it sail on the water out to sea to god knows where?!? A YES to Lisbon means neutrality is over!

...among other things!

Vote NO!

[He3]

You learn something new every day. Here is today's new thing.

EUISS: About us

The European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) is a Paris-based agency of the European Union, operating under the EU's second pillar, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Its goals are to find a common security culture for the EU, to help develop and project the CFSP, and to enrich Europe’s strategic debate.

The EUISS is an autonomous agency with full intellectual freedom.

Their report casts an interesting light on views expressed by Commission President Barroso speaking to the EU Parliament, December 4, 2007.

..the Treaty of Lisbon will update the Petersberg Tasks to contribute to combating terrorism.

It will allow the emergence of a true common European defence.

It will introduce a mutual defence clause and a solidarity clause, including energy security.

[McDave]

If the EU, or a core of member states, wants a military capacity, then such a development has to be welcomed.

The Irish Govt should have nothing to fear from proposals of this nature. I've been arguing on P.ie for some time now that EU military developments and a more independent non-aligned Irish policy are not incompatible. If the German, French, British and Spanish want to develop defence capacities, this is to me a much more attractive arrangement than NATO. And for many reasons, not least the basis of any EU defence arrangements resting on a democratic and transparent legal order.

In fact, as far as the Irish Govt and Lisbon are concerned, honesty is the best policy. Say it loud, Lisbon will enable military cooperation between consenting states. If we want to stay neutral, then we are perfectly entitled to. Everyone (except PANA) gets their way.

[He3]

The EU ISS report also casts an interesting light on this statement by the government in the White Paper on the Lisbon treaty.

. 'The Union is not a military power and its member States have no desire to move in such a direction'. pg 6, par 34.

[McDave]

The EU ISS report also casts an interesting light on this statement by the government in the White Paper on the Lisbon treaty.

. 'The Union is not a military power and its member States have no desire to move in such a direction'.

I don't see any contradiction between a common EU defence and not being a power. IMO having the ability to defend yourself or to conduct certain limited external operations is a world away from being an interventionist (super)power.

[fergalr]

We need to get it into our heads that most EU member states are members of NATO and these reports should be seen in this vein. The neutrality of the several non-NATO members will not be affected by what will be - I bet - voluntary measures.

If anyone here thinks the Austrians or Finns would put up with their neutrality being sold down the river, I'd invite them to join me in the real world. They're properly neutral, unlike Ireland. They have defence forces capable of some extent of self defence. We do not.

[He3]

I don't see any contradiction between a common EU defence and not being a power. IMO having the ability to defend yourself or to conduct certain limited external operations is a world away from being an interventionist (super)power.

As you introduce the common EU defence point McDave, here is something the White Paper says on that topic:

There is no proposal for the creation of a common defence, nor is there any prospect of such a proposal in the foreseeable future.

They do not say what they mean by the 'foreseeable future', but it seems to have ended yesterday with this publication.

[setanta]

Some contributors consider that moves in the recommended direction can happen under the existing treaties, while others believe the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, with its extensive changes to the defence functions of the EU, would be important to achieving their goals.

Some of the europhobic contributors to p.ie also think that the earth is flat, but that doesn't make it so.

You have an inexhaustable capacity, He3, to feign shock and surprise at any comment made anywhere in the EU about defence matters. Nothing this agency says changes the fact that under Lisbon (a) nothing may be done which prejudices Ireland's traditional defence posture, and (b) we have a veto on any and every proposal for military deloyment that Javier Solana (or his succesors) might bring to the European Council.

Such debates about the future defence configuration and capabilities of the EU have been a feature for all of the past 50 years of the Union's (EEC/EU) existence. They are part and parcel of a debate that takes place within a vigorous, international democracy. All your feigned surprise and consequent spinning does not change that nor the import or wording of the Lisbon treaty. Yet another NO side bluff.

[fergalr]

As you introduce the common EU defence point McDave, here is something the White Paper says on that topic:

There is no proposal for the creation of a common defence, nor is there any prospect of such a proposal in the foreseeable future.

They do not say what they mean by the foreseeable future, but it looks to have ended yesterday.

Think-tanks exist to push to boat out and expand the debate in their fields beyond accepted paradigms. If they're doing their job properly, at least.

It would be up to the European Council to make a policy decision as huge as this.