Permanent structured cooperation: ouuh la la la! It is urgent to wait...

(BRUSSELS2) Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in defense matters, provided for by the Lisbon Treaty (1), will not be implemented immediately. Intended to give a certain consistency to the States willing to move forward in European defence, in the wake of the Franco-British declaration of St Malo - a kind of hard core of European defense - this provision seems today today a little left aside and, above all, complicated to implement. What should she do? Who will be a member?

Complex, difficult, outdated? General Bentegeat, who chaired his last military committee on Wednesday, admitted this to the press when I asked him the question. " It is a complex and difficult subject. There is no rush to put it in place right away. We must let the Spanish Presidency launch its own program now. I am not sure that this project can be applied in its originally planned form. Since 2001, a lot has changed. In particular, the European Defense Agency has been set up. »

The whole question is to know what tasks this cooperation could fulfill and above all - as the general explains what criteria should be adopted to determine which countries will be members ". " This should in no way be a process that leads to the exclusion of certain European states He adds.

In fact, in the corridors of the Council, while many decisions are being prepared, none concerns the Permanent Structured Cooperation. Nobody seems in a hurry to commit to a new "thing". The following presidencies are expected: Spanish, Belgian, even Polish (which has decided to make Defense Europe one of its priorities).

It is urgent to wait. It is true that the ESDP today, 10 years after its creation, already offers numerous possibilities for enhanced cooperation. In a fairly flexible way, everyone participates in operations (if they want to and with the means they want) or in industrial projects - via the European Defense Agency or ad hoc mechanisms... And this cooperation "to map" do not systematically group together the same Member States. Or even never. Admittedly, France or Belgium are found in almost all ESDP actions. But this is not a rule, and it is not enough to constitute a consistent nucleus for permanent enhanced cooperation. And this leads to the exclusion of some. So... it is urgent to wait.

NB: Which, by the way, is not entirely in order with the Lisbon Treaty which provides for the entry into force of CSP "from the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty".

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)

(1) This new mechanism is established in article 42 of the new Treaty in a rather laconic way: “Member States which fulfill higher military capability criteria and which have entered into more binding commitments in this area with a view to the most demanding missions, shall establish permanent structured cooperation within the framework of the Union » The modalities for triggering enhanced cooperation are detailed in Article 46 and in a protocol (Protocol No. 10)