The Belgian army asked to tighten their belts. Specialization as the only solution?
(BRUSSELS2) With an additional 97 million euros to be found for 2010, to add to the 127 million euros already provided for in the multi-year savings forecasts, the new Chief of Staff of the Belgian army, Delcourt, has enough to spend a few sleepless nights. 97 million is more than all external operations (which amount to approximately 82 million euros*). The Belgian federal government is, in fact, faced (like almost all European governments) with a drastic drop in its revenues. And each ministry was asked to save money (**).
The army is destined to melt away. The Chief of Staff had also confided in a meeting with the unions in July that he was ready to say "no" to any new international mission without new means. Restructuring is to be expected. A workforce reduction plan has already been initiated. From 38.000 people today (including 2000 civilians), it was still to melt, dropping to 34.000 people in 2013, 30.000 in 2015 (against 44.000 in 1994, a decrease of a quarter of the workforce). And almost half of the bases are going to be closed. With some
groupings to be expected. This will cause difficulties in the army and movements of discontent to be expected.
Another challenge: equipment and investments. The equipment situation of the troops is not at the top. In Afghanistan, says a trade unionist from the FGTB, bulletproof vests are in limited number. Result, everyone before going out is obliged to borrow. Could participation in the A400M program, in European programs like Musis... be reviewed? Finally, on the external operations side, each mission will be closely examined. The prospect of reinforcing the IFAS, envisaged for a moment by the government, is receding; as well as taking Command of Operation Atalanta (which would have required a greater commitment).
Upcoming specialization. This deep restructuring is not isolated in Europe. The economic and budgetary crisis is forcing painful choices and accelerating restructuring. In fact, especially the armies of the small and medium-sized Member States no longer really have a choice: maintaining a large number of personnel under arms, numerous military bases and a certain range of equipment is relatively expensive. And the effectiveness of this army remains limited (because the amount devoted in volume) remains limited. Two solutions then exist: pooling (the pooling of equipment), tricky and difficult to set up, or specialization. This is one of the works carried out under the aegis of the European Defense Agency: identifying the best specialties existing in the European armies. The Belgian army thus has two specialties to its credit - mine clearance and the health service - which could be developed for the benefit of other (European) armies and would undoubtedly be useful in international operations.
(*) The Court of Auditors has a particularly severe judgment, this for several years, on the accounting of expenditure devoted to external operations "distributed in a non-transparent way over several budget programs" and on not having "no precise information on the cost price per operation or on the financing of expenses".
(**) The federal budget is 51 billion euros, including 2,8 billion euros for Defence. This budget is relatively low because a good part of the public activities in Belgium are assumed by the 3 regions (economy, transport...) or the 3 communities (education, culture...)