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2003 was a year of sharply contrast-ing fortunes for European defence.

The Iraq war split the EU down the middle and almost discredited the ideathat the Europeans should develop their own defence capability. By the end of the year, however, a revival of co-operation among the ‘big three’ –Britain, France and Germany – had putEuropean defence back on the agenda.Furthermore, the Union was preparing torun its first large-scale peace-keepingmission, in Bosnia.

The idea that the EU should be able torun its own military operations originatedin the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.During the wars in Croatia and Bosnia,dictators such as Slobodan Milosevictook little notice of what the Union saidbecause they knew that while it couldpass resolutions, it could not deploybattalions. And then when Kosovo wason the brink of exploding, the EUcounted for little in the diplomacy thattried to reconcile Serbs and Kosovars.

The Union’s Balkan failure encouragedBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair andFrench President Jacques Chirac tolaunch the idea of EU defence at theirsummit in St Malo in December 1998.

The essence of the Blair/Chirac deal was

that, to please the British, EU defenceshould not threaten NATO’s primacy;and, to please the French, the Unionshould be able to act autonomously formodest military missions.

That compromise has stuck for the pastfive years and has been accepted by theGermans and the rest of the EU.TheUnion has built new institutions – such asthe political and security committee, themilitary committee and the military staff.It has also worked out a set of agree-ments with NATO, whereby the EU canuse NATO’s planners and other assets for‘Berlin-plus’ operations – those which theUnion undertakes with NATO support.

The first such mission involved the EUtaking over NATO’s small peace-keepingoperation in Macedonia in April 2003.A few months later, the Union embarkedon its first autonomous mission whenthe French led a small stabilising forceto Bunia in Congo.

The US never liked the idea ofautonomous operations, fearing thatthey could in the long run lead to the EUduplicating what NATO does. But theAmericans grudgingly accepted Blair’sassurances that the UK and the manyother Atlanticist governments in theUnion would ensure that NATO came to no harm.

FEATURE

BIG THREE JOIN FORCESON DEFENCE

While attention focused on the collapse of the talks on a new EU constitution at last December’ssummit, a crucial step was taken towards creating a common defence policy. Charles Grant reports

‘The deal struck

between Britain,

France and Germany

on the future of

European defence is

good news for those

who believe that the

EU should focus more

on military capabilities

than institutions’

One rationale for giving the EU a role in defence was the hope that it wouldprove more effective than NATO atpersuading the member states toenhance their military capabilities. Herethe record has been mixed.

Some countries, such as Germany, havecut defence budgets. But others, such as the UK and France, have increasedspending, while several have invested innew equipment.Thus six EU memberstates are building a new transport plane,the A400M. Spain, Italy and France haveeither introduced all-professional armies,or begun the process. And in 2003, Britainand France came up with the idea of anew EU agency with the job of pushingthe member states to improve theircapabilities.The Union will establish thisbody in 2004.

Despite this progress, the Iraq war – and its consequences – very nearlydestroyed the idea of European defence.One consequence was the Brusselssummit on April 29, bringing togetherthe leaders of Germany, France, Belgium

and Luxembourg, who had led opposi-tion to the war.

They approved a Belgian idea for aseparate EU military headquarters in theBrussels suburb of Tervuren, arguing that if the Union was going to conductautonomous operations, it would needits own operational planners.

The counter-argument, put by the UK and some of those governments excludedfrom the summit, was that the EU could use a national headquarters, dulymodified to reflect the nationalities ofthose taking part in the mission.That waswhat happened for the mission to Bunia,when a French HQ was in charge.

Whatever such technical arguments,the Belgian proposal, strongly backed byChirac and German Chancellor GerhardSchröder – against the advice of theirforeign and defence ministries – was ofhuge political importance.The Tervureninitiative had an obvious message forAmerican, British, Spanish, Italian andeast European eyes. It appeared to be

an attempt to build up a Europeanalternative to NATO, with a distinctlyanti-American flavour.

The concept of an EU staff of opera-tional planners is not, in itself, a big deal. It is probably desirable, if in thelong term the Union is to engage inmedium-sized autonomous operations.But given the context in which theTervuren initiative was launched – withEurope split into two hostile camps –the timing was extraordinarily foolish.

This scheme jiggled the knife in thewound between New Europe and OldEurope. It made everyone mistrust every-one else’s motives. And, worst of all, itcaused delight among the Pentagonhawks.Their ambition is to maintain thewound between New and Old Europe, topractice a policy of divide and rule, and toprevent the Union emerging as a unitedand credible actor in foreign and defencepolicy.The April 29 summit helped to fulfilall those Pentagon aspirations.

In the autumn of 2003, however,

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On target: renewed co-operation between France, Germany and Britain paved the way for a ground-breaking deal

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renewed co-operation among the bigthree – despite persistent divisions onIraq – revived the EU’s ambitions indefence. Chirac and Schröder abandonedtheir plans for an avant-garde defencegrouping, believing that Europeanforeign and defence policies cannot bebuilt without the UK.

For the sake of an agreement with theBritish, they diluted their original plan for amilitary headquarters which could run anEU operation. Meanwhile, Blair decidedthat Britain could not fulfil its objectives inEurope without rebuilding bridges withFrance and Germany. He too compromisedby accepting the principle that the EU mayneed to do its own operational planning.

The final deal had three principal elements.First, the EU will deploy a small group ofoperational planners to SHAPE, NATO’splanning headquarters near Mons.Thisgroup will work on ensuring a smoothrelationship between the Union andNATO on ‘Berlin-plus’ missions.There willalso be a new unit of operational plannersin the Union’s military staff, to help withthe planning of EU military missions.

When the Union conducts an auto-nomous mission, a national headquarterswill normally be in charge. However, ifthere is unanimous consent, the EU may

ask its operational planners to play a rolein conducting an autonomous mission.They would need to be beefed up withadditional resources before they were ableto run a mission on their own.

The other two prongs of this deal concernthe draft European constitution.The text which came out of the conventioncontained two articles which upset theAmericans, the British and many other EU governments.

One of these would allow a group ofmember states to establish a ‘structuredco-operation’ in defence – meaning aclub for the most ambitious, perhapsalong the lines of the Tervuren initiative.The big three agreed to amend thisarticle so that it could apply only to co-operation on military capabilities andso that the criteria for membership ofthis club would not be too stringent.

The second article – rather like Article 5 of the NATO treaty – would commit member states to defend each other fromattack.The Americans worried that thismight turn the Union into a collectivedefence organisation which would rivalNATO. France and Germany agreed towater down this article, which nowincludes references to NATO being thefoundation of EU collective defence.

At the Brussels EU summit in December,other governments signed up to this deal.The summit’s failure to reach anagreement on the constitution does notaffect the agreement on planning, forwhich no treaty change is required.However, the treaty articles on defencecannot come into effect until such time asthe constitution is adopted and ratified byall the member states.

It is far from certain whether that willhappen. However, if some version of theconstitution is finally concluded, it willcontain the agreed wording of these twodefence articles, since it has the backing of all 25 governments.

The deal struck between Britain, Franceand Germany on the future of Europeandefence is good news for those whobelieve that the Union should focus moreon military capabilities than institutions.

For, now that the EU has agreed to set up its own military planning cell – adevelopment which will make very littledifference in the real world, despite thehighly-charged negotiations surrounding it – it can move ahead with what matters.And that is not only boosting Europe’smilitary capabilities, but also preparing totake over NATO’s peace-keeping missionin Bosnia.

Tony Blair’s role in the revival of European defence co-operation has been crucial.

Many senior figures in the Ministry of Defence andthe Foreign Office had doubts about his desire tocompromise with the French and the Germans on planning staffs in the autumn of 2003.Theyshared American concerns that a small planning unit could be the germ of something which would be harmful to NATO.

But 10 Downing Street has set policy on this subject,forcing the other Whitehall departments to follow.

Blair has also played an essential role in reassuringWashington that EU defence will not damage NATO.Indeed, just before the Brussels summit, he persuadedGeorge Bush that his administration should accept

the EU planning unit. He pointed out that if Britainblocked any Union role in operational planning,France and Germany would probably go ahead – witha few of their friends – and set up some sort ofmultinational headquarters, and that could developin ways which harmed American interests. But if theBritish are part of the new EU planning arrangements,they can steer them in a NATO-friendly direction.

Many European countries needed reassurance, too:the smaller ones tend to become worried when the big three concoct a deal.The central and eastEuropeans, in particular, are great fans of NATO whowere never very enthusiastic about EU defence.

But when Blair – whose Atlanticist credentials cannotbe doubted – tells them that they need not worry,they are inclined to believe him.

Blair takes centre stage