Civil-military cooperation (European Parliament report 2010)
| Tuesday 23 November 2010 - Strasbourg - Provisional edition | |
| Civil-military cooperation and development of civil-military capacities |
| The European Parliament ,
– having regard to Title V of the Treaty on European Union, – having regard to the European Security Strategy entitled 'A secure Europe in a better world', adopted by the European Council on 12 December 2003, and the report on its implementation entitled 'Providing security in a changing world' adopted by the European Council on 11 and 12 December 2008, – having regard to the Internal Security Strategy for the European Union adopted by the European Council on 25 and 26 March 2010, – having regard to the Council conclusions on CSDP adopted on 26 April 2010, – having regard to the conclusions on ESDP and the declaration entitled 'ESDP ten years – challenges and opportunities', adopted by the Council on 17 November 2009, – having regard to the declaration on strengthening the European security and defense policy adopted by the European Council on 12 December 2008, and the declaration on capacity building, adopted by the Council on 11 December 2008, – having regard to the Presidency Conclusions adopted by the European Council in Santa Maria de Feira on 20 June 2000 and in Gothenburg on 16 June 2001, the European Union Program for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts, also adopted in Gothenburg on 16 June 2001, and the 2008 civilian headline goal, approved by the European Council on 17 December 2004, and the 2010 civilian headline goal, approved by the Council on 19 November 2007, – having regard to the Presidency Conclusions adopted by the European Council in Helsinki on 11 December 1999 (the Civilian Headline Goal 2003) and the Civilian Headline Goal 2010 approved by the Council on 17 May 2004, – having regard to the Council conclusions of 30 November 2009 on strengthening CBRN security in the European Union and endorsing the European Union CBRN Action Plan, – having regard to the Council document of 3 December 2008 on the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1325, reinforced by UNSC Resolution 1820 in the context of ESDP, and the Council document of the 14 September 2006 on the integration of human rights in the ESDP, – having regard to its resolution of 10 February 2010 on the earthquake in Haiti, which called for the creation of a European Union civil protection force(1) , – having regard to its resolution of 10 March 2010 on the implementation of the European security strategy and the common security and defense policy(2) , – having regard to the Council Decision of 26 July 2010 establishing the organization and functioning of the European External Action Service (EEAS)(3) , – having regard to Rule 48 of its Rules of Procedure, – having regard to the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (A7-0308 / 2010), General Considerations 1. Recalls that the European Union is committed to defining and carrying out common policies and actions to preserve peace, prevent conflicts, strengthen post-conflict recovery actions and strengthen international security in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as to consolidate and support democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the principles of international law, as well as to assist populations confronted with natural disasters or related to human activity; 2. Emphasizes that internal security and external security are increasingly intertwined and that, by developing its crisis management capacities, policies and capacities for conflict prevention and peacebuilding, in line with abovementioned objectives, the European Union also contributes to safeguarding the security of its own citizens; 3. Emphasizes that the Union, mainly in the context of its civilian crisis management, offers a distinct contribution to global security, which reflects its core values and principles; 4. Emphasizes that genuine responses to current crises and security threats, including natural disasters, must rely on both civilian and military capabilities, and require the latter to cooperate more closely; recalls that the establishment of the EU's comprehensive approach and its combined civilian and military crisis management capabilities fall under a separate system from the CSDP and constitute its main added value; recalls that CSDP is not the only instrument available and that CSDP missions should be used as part of a wider EU strategy; 5. Recalls the need for a European Union White Paper on security and defence, based on systematic and rigorous security and defense analyzes carried out by the States according to common criteria and a timetable, and which define more clearly the objectives and interests of the Union in terms of security and defence, taking into account the means and resources available; insists that this White Paper should also define the areas where greater civil-military cooperation would be desirable as well as the conditions for its implementation; takes the view that the EU White Paper should explicitly identify opportunities for pooling resources at EU level, as well as national specializations and harmonization capabilities to enable large economies of scale to be achieved; Strengthen civil-military coordination 6. Emphasizes that the establishment of the European External Action Service (EEAS) should contribute to the development of a truly comprehensive European approach to civilian and military crisis management, conflict prevention and peacekeeping , and provide the European Union with adequate structures, staff and financial resources to enable it to exercise its global responsibilities in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations; 7. Fully supports the transfer to the EEAS of the CSDP structures, including the Crisis Management and Planning Directorate, the Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability, the European Union Military Staff, and the situation, under the direct authority and responsibility of the Vice-President of the Commission/High Representative of the Union for Foreign and Security Policy; recalls the commitment of the Vice-President/High Representative to ensure that all these structures work in close cooperation and synergy with the relevant Commission units dealing with crisis response planning and programming, conflict prevention and peacebuilding which have been transferred to the EEAS; urges the Vice-President of the Commission/High Representative to ensure that these services act on an equal footing with the CSDP structures; stresses that no formal or informal control by the CSDP structures of the planning and programming measures financed by the Instrument for Stability can be accepted, and insists on the fact that the Commission structures which have been transferred must not be dismantled; 8. in order to promote the design of the Union's comprehensive approach, also encourages close coordination between the European External Action Service (EEAS) and all the units remaining attached to the Commission, in particular those deal with issues of development, humanitarian aid, civil protection and public health; stresses the need for direct links between the EEAS and the CSDP agencies, namely the European Defense Agency, the European Union Institute for Security Studies, the European Security and Defense College and the European Union Satellite Centre; 9. Draws attention to the role of the Commission's Monitoring and Information Center (CSI) in facilitating the coordination of post-disaster assistance under the Civil Protection Mechanism and stresses the need to establish a link between the Center and the European External Action Service and that this is ensured by the Vice-President/High Representative, in her capacity as Vice-President of the Commission; advocates for better coordination and faster deployment of military resources in the context of disaster relief, in particular airlift capabilities, drawing lessons from the experience of Haiti and respecting the fundamentally civilian nature of disaster relief operations; calls again for an improvement of the Civil Protection Mechanism allowing voluntary pooling of resources from Member States, held in reserve for immediate deployment in the event of a disaster response operation; suggests that these resources be coordinated and deployed on behalf of the EU Civil Protection Force to improve the visibility of EU action; recalls at the same time the responsibility of each Member State for civil protection and disaster control measures; 10. Calls also, in the context of operations carried out after disasters – natural or man-made – for better coordination between the humanitarian organizations of the Member States and DG ECHO; 11. Calls on the Council to adopt without delay the decisions necessary for the entry into force of the mutual assistance clause set out in Article 42(7) of the EU Treaty and the solidarity clause referred to in Article 222 of the TFEU, which should reflect the comprehensive approach of the European Union and rely on civil-military resources; 12. Recalls the successful establishment of the partnership for building peace between the Commission and non-governmental organizations and that good cooperation between non-governmental and civil society organizations and the future EEAS is of crucial importance ; Calls on the Commission to design the framework for cooperation with NGOs and to promote the use of non-state actors in the EU's conflict prevention and management actions, in particular by including them in the training activities of The union; The strategic level 13. At political and strategic level, welcomes the integration of civilian and military elements within the Crisis Management and Planning Directorate (CMPD), which constitutes real progress; insists, however, on the need to achieve a good balance between civilian and military strategic planning capabilities, not only in quantitative terms, but also hierarchically, in order to fully exploit all possible synergies; stresses at the same time the need to scrupulously respect the differences between civilian and military roles and their distinct objectives, and to ensure that the right mix in terms of human resources is sought for each operation, on a case-by-case basis case; 14. Urges the Vice-President/High Representative in particular to address the problem of the lack of specialized personnel in the planning of civilian missions and the building up of civilian capacity and to ensure that the Crisis Management and Planning Directorate includes a sufficient number of specialists in all priority areas of civilian capacity, including police, justice, civil administration, civil protection and control, as well as in the field of human rights protection; 15. Emphasizes the need, during the routine phases, to arrive at a common assessment of the situations which is shared by all the players in the European Union (EEAS, but also the Commission units concerned: DG DEV, DG ECHO, DG SANCO, with the support of their respective crisis assessment capacities) which should appear in all regional or national strategic documents of the Union; notes that the reshaped EU Delegations have a key role to play in this process; 16. Calls for the role of heads of EU delegations and/or EU special representatives – when present in a crisis area – to be strengthened in civil-military coordination actions, also to ensure closer political control of military actions; At the operational level 17. at the operational planning level, pleads in favor of a significant reinforcement of civil planning capacities to match the ambitions of the civilian CSDP missions, by consolidating the civil planning and conduct capacity (CCPC) in with regard to staffing, and through a better distribution of tasks between the strategic and operational levels; insists that this division of labor must be based on a balanced and comprehensive personnel strategy; is of the opinion that, taking into account the responsibilities of the civilian operation commander, this function should be placed at the appropriate level (ie at the top level) in the hierarchy of the European External Action Service; 18. Reiterates its call for the creation of a permanent EU operational headquarters, responsible for operational planning and the conduct of EU military operations, to replace the current system of using the one of seven staffs available on an ad hoc basis; stresses that such an initiative would ensure a coherent chain of command and would considerably increase the Union's ability to provide rapid and systematic responses to crises (notably by strengthening the institutional memory of the Union) and would also reduce costs; 19. Believes that the operational headquarters should be located next to the CCPC in order to maximize the benefits of civil-military coordination, including by pooling certain functions, and to further highlight best practices among European Union planners; even suggests that the operational staff and the CCPC could be integrated into a common EU crisis management staff, which would be responsible for operational planning and the conduct of all civilian missions of Union, military operations and security sector reform missions; 20. Emphasizes, however, that account must be taken of the differences between civilian planning and military planning, and that separate chains of command must be maintained, with a civilian operation commander and a military operation commander, whose skills are maintained, and which benefit from the same hierarchical level within the EEAS; Building the Union's civil and military capabilities 21. Notes the number of commitments made by the Member States with regard to the establishment of military and civilian crisis management capabilities, from the European Councils of Helsinki and Santa Maria de Feira, to the declaration of December 2008 on capacity building; urges the Member States and the Vice-President/High Representative to ensure that these commitments are properly implemented in order to bridge the glaring gap between existing operational capabilities and stated political objectives; 22. in the context of the follow-up to the 2010 headline targets, calls on the Member States to focus on the concrete provision of capabilities and to target the areas where possible civil-military synergies exist, in particular those already identified, in order to to make real progress in the short term; stresses that capability development must be guided by specific requirements specific to CSDP missions; welcomes the systematic and comprehensive capability development process for military capabilities within the European Defense Agency; encourages further reflection on how to build bridges between the two capability development processes based on overall civilian and military goals; 23. Welcomes the action of the rotating Council Presidencies – the current and the previous one – in launching the process to clarify the nature and scope of the permanent structured cooperation (PSC) referred to in Article 42(6) TFEU; Calls on the Council to say, without further ado, what its exact conception of the PSC is, taking account of the civil-military nature of the European Union's comprehensive approach, and to set out the concrete measures it intends to take to launch the PSC in the context of the current financial crisis and the reduction of national defense budgets in the Member States of the Union; Staffing for missions 24. In view of the political commitments made, calls on the Member States as a matter of urgency to find a solution to the chronic shortage of civilian personnel for the CSDP missions, in particular the EULEX mission in Kosovo and the EUPOL mission in Afghanistan, by intensifying, in particular, the work aimed at establishing national strategies to facilitate the deployment of civilian personnel on mission; urges that, within the framework of these strategies, the competent national authorities, such as the ministries of the interior and of justice, in close cooperation with the ministries of defence, devise a more structured approach to the task of establishing the conditions required for the participation of civilian personnel in CSDP missions, as regards, in particular, career prospects and remuneration; 25. in this context, calls on the Member States to ensure, in particular, that participation in CSDP missions is considered a major asset for career development in the police and justice systems of the country of origin, and that the services which temporarily second civilians to carry out these missions are adequately compensated for the temporary loss of personnel; considers that the Council should ensure that the rates of daily allowances paid to the staff of CSDP missions are adapted to the situation in which the mission in question is carried out; 26. Emphasizes once again the need to respect UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which requires the integration of the principle of parity in terms of recruitment and training for all missions, and the consideration of equality gender for all actions undertaken; Emphasizes that a sufficient presence of women in civilian or military missions is an essential condition for their success, whether in disaster relief or peacekeeping operations, or in diplomatic mediation activities, because their presence helps to ensure that the needs, rights and interests of women are properly addressed and to ensure their participation in the achievement of the actions and objectives of the mission; recalls that it is up to the Member States to draw up national action plans to ensure compliance with resolution 1325; Training 27. Emphasizes the need to provide appropriate pre-deployment training, which could include the participation of civilian personnel in military exercises, including emergency response drills, and military personnel in training and/or or civil exercises; strongly recommends that Member States keep up-to-date lists of deployable civilians with the required skills, in particular those who have been trained for missions carried out alongside military forces; welcomes the system used by certain Member States which have set up a specialized centralized agency responsible for the recruitment and training of all deployable civilian personnel; 28. Supports the Council's development of the Goalkeeper software environment (civilian capability management tool) to facilitate the recruitment and training of civilian personnel; 29. Draws attention to the European Training Group and stresses that one of the lessons that has been learned from its existence is that investments in training only make sense if they are linked to effective deployments; welcomes the fact that the Commission has prioritized measures to ensure that the future training project for civilians, funded under the Instrument for Stability, targets specialists already identified for deployment in future missions; 30. Insists, in line with the 2008 Council recommendations, on the increased role that the European Security and Defense College (CESD) should play in the area of capability development and crisis management training effective in view of the establishment of the EEAS; Urges the Council to improve the College's training facilities and staffing, including by providing it with a permanent headquarters so as to ensure sustainable and effective training at the strategic, operational and tactical levels for civilian and military personnel of the Member States and institutions of the Union; pleads for the creation of scholarships for young graduates wishing to specialize in areas where needs exist, 31. Calls for a preparatory action aimed at developing and making available training on mediation and dialogue in the context of the establishment of the EEAS and in line with the concept relating to the strengthening of EU capacities in the field mediation and dialogue, adopted by the Council in 2009; Speed of funding 32. Encourages, moreover, the provisions aimed at speeding up the allocation of resources to civilian missions and at simplifying the decision-making procedures and the methods of implementation; stresses the need for the relevant Commission services to work in close cooperation and on an equal footing with the structures within the EEAS responsible for crisis management in order to allow rapid release of funding for civilian missions; calls, for the sake of transparency and accountability, to create a budget line for each CSDP mission; 33. Asks the Council to take the appropriate decisions quickly to create the start-up fund referred to in Article 41 of the EU Treaty, after consulting the European Parliament; calls on the Vice-President/High Representative to regularly update Parliament on the state of play once the start-up fund has been set up; Crisis management instruments 34. Welcomes the development of the concept of Integrated Police Units (IPUs), i.e. multi-purpose, rapidly deployable, flexible and interoperable forces capable of carrying out executive policing tasks and which, under certain conditions, may also be deployed as part of a military operation and under military command; takes note of the successful application of this concept in Bosnia and Herzegovina within the framework of EUFOR Althea and in Kosovo within the EULEX mission; emphasizes the need for these units, which are particularly well suited to intervening in unstable situations and in particular during periods of transition when it is necessary to pass from a military command to a civilian command; recommends that Member States invest in the development of these capacities; 35. in this context, fully supports the use of the European Gendarmerie Force (EGF), which can be placed under military or civilian command and which offers a rapid deployment capability for expeditionary police missions, and appears to be a particularly well suited for a range of effective crisis management operations, including post-disaster stabilization missions; calls on all Member States with police forces with military status to join this initiative; 36. Welcomes the progress made in setting up the Expert Group for Civilian Response Teams with the aim of having a rapid assessment capability, but stresses the need to expand these lists; stresses the importance of early assessment and information-gathering capabilities to ensure that the Union responds to crises using the most appropriate means available; 37. Emphasizes that it is essential, when a crisis arises, that the European Union have the capacity, from the first hours of the crisis, to deploy multidisciplinary teams, made up of all civilian, military and civilian experts -soldiers of the European External Action Service and of the Commission; 38. Calls on the Vice-President/High Representative, the Council and the Commission to present a common understanding of the new CSDP missions referred to in Article 43 of the EU Treaty and how they will be carried out in the context of cooperation civil-military established; encourages them, in this context, to speed up the establishment of a group of experts in the field of security sector reform in order to strengthen the Union's capacity in this field; 39. Calls on the Member States to make optimal use of existing tools and to put in place impact assessment mechanisms before formulating ambitious new targets; 40. Believes that EU Battlegroups are an appropriate tool for crisis management operations; reiterates its call on the Council to make these more user-friendly and flexible; also calls for their use for civil-military humanitarian relief operations to be improved, in full respect of the Oslo guidelines on the use of military and civil protection assets in disaster relief operations; 41. Urges the Member States to reach an agreement on the extension of the concept of common costs linked to the use of battlegroups (the costs must be financed by the Athena mechanism), or on the common financing of the entire cost of crisis management operations carried out by them; considers that such an agreement is necessary to ensure that their use is politically and economically acceptable and to ensure that waiting Member States do not bear a disproportionate burden in a difficult budgetary context; recalls in this respect that in November 2009 the Council invited its General Secretariat to develop ideas on the financing of military operations, in order to discuss them at a high level in 2010, but that no progress has been made so far; 42. Calls on the Member States to view the Battlegroups as long-term partnerships and to refrain from disbanding them at the end of their stand-by period, so that the resources invested in their creation are not wasted ; calls for these groups to be trained to operate alongside civilian deployments; even suggests that they may include civilian units or specialists within their own structure, in particular Integrated Police Units (UPI); Acquire the means for comprehensive crisis management 43. Calls on the Member States to go further in developing dual-use capabilities for civilian CSDP missions and military operations, in particular as regards transport capabilities, and to ensure interoperability in terms of training and practice, and to make better use of existing approaches and, where appropriate, to link civilian and military capability development processes; Research and technology 44. Emphasizes that EU military and civilian personnel will increasingly be called upon to act side by side and that they will be exposed to a large extent to the same threats, such as improvised explosive devices, and that they need comparable capabilities in areas such as strategic and tactical transport, logistics support, communications, intelligence collection and assessment systems, medical support, security and force protection, use of space capabilities and unmanned vehicles; 45. Stresses, therefore, the need to coordinate – and boost – investment in dual-use technologies and capabilities, so as to quickly close remaining capability gaps, while avoiding unnecessary duplication, creating synergies and supporting standardization; recalls the essential role that the European Defense Agency should play in this area, in the process of identifying capability needs and also designating the capabilities that should be shared, pooled or obtained between the members of the Union, in order to provide deployable means to conduct and implement CSDP operations successfully and safely; 46. in this context, supports the establishment of European framework cooperation for security and defense research in order to ensure complementarity and synergy between defense R&T investment and research investment aimed at strengthening civil security carried out by the Commission under the framework programme, for example, in areas such as situational awareness, unmanned aerial vehicles, maritime surveillance, countering improvised explosive devices, detection and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) protection, communication, intelligence gathering, assessment and data transfer, and cybersecurity; 47. Notes, however, that this cooperation should not go beyond what is necessary for civil-military cooperation in the areas of peacekeeping, conflict prevention, strengthening international security, crisis management and humanitarian aid; 48. Welcomes the open debate that took place between EU Defense Ministers during their informal meeting in Ghent on 23 and 24 September 2010 on European defense research and their assessment of the role of the EDA as described in Article 42(3) of the EU Treaty; Rapid availability of equipment 49. Encourages new measures to ensure that all equipment necessary for rapid response activities in crisis situations – civilian or military – is readily available; welcomes the ongoing work on an inventory management system for civilian CSDP missions; calls on the Vice-President/High Representative to carry out a thorough cost-benefit analysis in order to determine the optimal solutions for each type of equipment required; believes that, depending on the types of equipment, a good mix must be found in terms of EU-wide warehousing, framework contracts and virtual stocks of equipment held by Member States; 50. Welcomes, in this context, the establishment of a temporary warehouse in Bosnia and Herzegovina and calls for rapid progress on the establishment of a permanent warehouse so that the Union is better prepared for civilian crisis management; Multinational cooperation 51. Encourages further progress in the field of pooling and sharing of means to enable an increase in capacity at the best price, which is more necessary than ever in these times of budgetary austerity; welcomes, in particular, the actions aimed at closing the gaps in strategic airlift capabilities, namely the establishment by a number of Member States of a European Airlift Command and the fleet initiative European Air Transport Authority (EATC); encourages the Vice-President/High Representative and the Member States to follow the recommendations of the European Defense Agency and to accelerate the work aimed at identifying other areas where the principles of pooling and sharing could be applied, including in the areas of training or mission support; welcomes, in this respect, the proposal to set up a multinational helicopter within the EATC which could be mobilized for both civilian and military missions; Partnerships 52. Recalls that the primary responsibility for maintaining peace and security at international level rests with the United Nations Security Council; stresses, therefore, the need for close cooperation between the Union and the United Nations in the field of civilian and military crisis management, and in particular in humanitarian relief operations, the direction of which is provided by the Office of the United Nations Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); calls for this cooperation to be strengthened, particularly in theaters where one organization has to take over from the other, especially given the mixed experience in Kosovo; 53. Urges the Member States to ensure that their contributions to UN missions are sufficient and carried out in a coordinated manner; invites the Vice-President/High Representative to explore further ways in which the EU as a whole could contribute more effectively to UN-led actions, for example by launching EU-style rapid response operations gateways' or 'out of theatre' or by providing an EU input within a larger UN mission; 54. Calls for improved monitoring of the implementation through UN agencies of EU aid, in line with the European Court of Auditors Special Report No 15/2009; European Union-NATO 55. Emphasizes that, as 21 of the 28 NATO members are members of the European Union, close cooperation between the EU and NATO is of crucial importance to avoid actions where military capabilities are duplicated, when the two organizations operate in the same theater of operations, without prejudice to the principle of autonomy in decision-making and respecting the status of neutrality of certain Member States of the Union; reaffirms the urgent need to resolve the underlying political issues hampering EU-NATO cooperation and calls for full and more effective implementation of the "Berlin plus" arrangements, in order to enable both organizations to intervene effectively in crises current and future; 56. Emphasizes the need to provide the same degree of transparency and commitment to non-EU NATO countries and non-NATO EU countries in joint activities, such as underlined this in the third chapter of the NATO 2020 report (“Albright Report”); 57. Calls on non-NATO Member States to ensure that NATO's new Strategic Concept does not lead to unnecessary duplication of civilian capabilities, which would put additional pressure on already scarce resources; is convinced that NATO should be able to rely more on the civilian capabilities of other international organizations such as the European Union and the United Nations; 58. Reiterates its support for closer EU-NATO cooperation in capability development and compliance, as far as possible, with NATO standards; encourages further progress on joint action to address the shortage of transport helicopters; Welcomes the initiatives aimed at coordinating EU and NATO activities in the areas of countering CBRN disasters and improvised explosive devices and the provision of medical support, which are issues relevant both to missions both civilian and military; European Union – OSCE – African Union 59. Emphasizes the need for closer cooperation between the European Union and the OSCE and between the European Union and the African Union in their specific operational areas, improving early warning systems and ensuring an exchange crisis management best practices and skills; o 60. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Vice-President/High Representative, the Council, the Commission, the parliaments of the Member States, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the UN Secretary General and the Secretary General of NATO.
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