“Pooling and sharing”, new udders of European defense
(BRUXELLES2, exclusive) Aaaah... pooling and sharing, you're going to hear about it these days. And regularly. These are, in fact, the two new 'udders' of Defense Europe. They are essential today, in all the speeches and all the capitals, budgetary crisis and restrictions oblige, but it is still difficult to draw some concrete consequences. Too early no doubt. And the resistance in the capitals, in the General Staffs in particular, still seems to be numerous. Defense Ministers will discuss it this afternoon. But the draft conclusions, which 'B2' was able to read, are intended to be consensual.
Extraordinary advice in September
This text builds a first political ambition. But nothing very concrete, indeed, if not a commitment to follow the situation very closely and to devote a Council of Ministers to it. extraordinary, where Member States can declare their intentions with regard to new cooperation initiatives ". A date has thus been set for autumn 2011, under the Polish presidency, for this first detailed review. In the meantime, the ministers set some guidelines for this cooperation.
A structured approach
It takes a " structured and long-term approach of these issues will highlight the 27. Pooling and sharing - whether at multinational level or on a "regional" (in other words bilateral) basis is a " key method to preserve and develop military capabilities in Europe to support and enhance CSDP », the common European security and defense policy.
European added value exists
Admittedly, the Member States have their own responsibility for defining and implementing these policies, but there is a " added value of doing this work at EU level add the ministers. This makes it possible to draw up a map of current and future cooperation, to identify best practices, models for cooperation and success criteria, to develop other support tools and to have expertise in certain areas such as interoperability and standardization ».
Some privileged areas
The European approach could focus on a few privileged areas, it is specified: research and technology, public procurement, maintenance, logistics, education and training.
The European Defense Agency at the heart of the system
For this work, the 27 place the European Defense Agency at the heart of this cooperation, dependent for it " identify possible cases of pooling and pooling and analyze the potential industrial implications ". Pooling and sharing could go “ either by extending existing projects to other partners, or by setting up new cooperation projects”, relying on the contacts “ taken at the multilateral level by the Chiefs of Staff ».
No group of wise men but a group of voluntary experts
The idea, a time advanced, of having a “group of wise men” or “peers” going to tour the Member States and preparing a report has been abandoned. Several countries had already presented candidates and others had remained to be part of this group. But it came up against the reluctance of several member states. The option chosen is therefore for the European Defense Agency to benefit from support high-level experts » offered by the States on « a voluntary basis ».
NATO - EU cooperation
The interest of close contact with NATO is also recalled. A cooperation which has already been initiated between the European Defense Agency and the ACT (theAllied Command Transformation), its equivalent in NATO. Cooperation facilitated by the fact that the two leaders — CF Arnould on the one hand, General Abrial on the other — are both... French.
