The Wroclaw meeting: waiting for a political impetus
(BRUSSELS2) The informal meeting of Defense Ministers opens today in Wroclaw with an air of deja vu. Initially conceived by the Polish presidency as a point of order for its defense priority, the meeting has now been demoted to the rank of non-event. Several ministers - this is the case of the French Gérard Longuet or the Spaniard Carme Chacon - have also chosen to attend only the working dinner devoted to operations and a few informal bilateral exchanges, leaving aside the debates the following day devoted to capacities. In the absence of the High Representative, Catherine Ashton, retained in New York, it is the new Polish Defense Minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, who will chair the meeting.
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Resolve unresolved issues in operations
On the operations side, the topics discussed deserve to be decided at the political level. They all look like deja vu. How to end Operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina? How to have more resources for Eunavfor Atalanta and implement more robust actions? What can be done to strengthen the maritime capacities of the countries of the Indian Ocean? All subjects debated for several months (years) within EU working groups and PSC meetings and which now deserve to be settled. We will also have to ask ourselves the question of what to do now with EUFOR Libya, which is a patent failure. Or rather as an officer ironically commented: how to prevent people in Rome from getting even more bored! The extension of the mission in Uganda to train Somali soldiers with the extension of EUTM Somalia, on which several Member States had many doubts before its establishment, it should be approved; this mission, to be discreet, is nonetheless one of the most interesting. It could also illustrate (with a bit of determination) the missions of the future for the PeSDC.
We could also have spoken of the "civilian" missions of the EU which have a strong military impact. In Afghanistan, what is the future of the EUPOL mission (police) at a time of withdrawal of NATO forces which will accelerate in 2012? What to do with the two missions (EUPOL / EUBAM) deployed in Israel/Palestine? What about the involvement in black Africa (missions in the Congo, or very possible mission in Côte d'Ivoire) not to mention the possible mission in Libya? However, according to a principle inherited from the past, which has an institutional justification but little operational explanation, the Ministers of Defense do not speak of the civilian missions which are the prerogative of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs...
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- The Althea mission in Bosnia below the waterline…
- More "robust" methods for Atalanta's ships
- Training of the Somali army (EUTM): we extend
- EUFOR Libya, the EU's first virtual mission…
Accelerate capacity work
The second day will be devoted to capacities, the Weimar initiative and pooling and sharing. A number of projects have been put on the table - more than 300 in a first draft according to my information -. Once the blueprint has been drawn up, there are not many left that can lead to concrete results: the School of the Future for transport aviation (proposed by France in particular) or an integrated multinational medical unit (proposal by Italy in particular ) are among these. The last high-level political discussion dates back to the Belgian presidency where a roadmap, the Ghent roadmap, was drawn up. Since then, several national or multilateral initiatives have been presented. A few projects are under study at the European Defense Agency. But it seems necessary to change gear, to speed up the work to move on - as I wrote from the renovation of the garden shed to the main house, without waiting another year. The budgetary, economic and financial crisis enters its heart. And the consequences on defense budgets are not over. The shock wave is likely to last a few years. And once the withdrawal from Afghanistan has taken place, certain European forces risk being literally wrung out.
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The last working session will be devoted to partnerships with non-EU member states, with a particular focus on partners from the East - the Polish presidency obliges. Partnership with the UN and NATO will also be covered. With the UN, it is a question of reactivating mechanisms for consultation on crisis management which have, for the moment, been left aside. With NATO, the facts of the problem are known and very political. They are not likely to get better in the years to come, with the Turkish will to assert itself at the regional level, the frozen conflict still unresolved between Cyprus and Turkey. Situation which could crystallize with the Cypriot presidency of the European Union (in the second half of 2); Turkey having threatened to suspend all its contacts with the European Union. It may be noted that the EU's third partnership with an international organization - with the African Union - is not on the agenda. It's a shame because it is probably the one that is, concretely, the most useful today.
Meeting agenda
- Thursday, September 22 - 20:15 p.m.: dinner devoted to operations.
- Friday September 23 - 9am-11am: 1st working session - "Capacities" - Pooling and sharing
- Friday, September 23 - 11:30 a.m. - 13 p.m.: 2nd working session - "Partnerships"
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