Paris, 6 May 2008 – France will hold the presidency of the European Union from July to December 2008. At a preparatory meeting on 3 October 2007, Mr François FILLON, Prime Minister of France, told Mr Jean-Pierre MASSERET, President of the Assembly, that the European security and defence policy (ESDP) was one of France’s main priorities. Mr MASSERET assured the French Prime Minister that the Assembly supported France in its desire to promote European security and defence. At the Assembly’s plenary session in December 2007, which marked the beginning of the French Presidency of Western European Union (January to December 2008), Mr FILLON paid tribute to the role of the Assembly in spreading a common European security and defence culture. On the eve of the French Presidency of the European Union and at Mr FILLON’s express request, the Assembly, in cooperation with the French National Assembly, held a conference on 5 May in the Palais Bourbon in Paris on the topic of “Strategic choices for European security and defence”. The aim of this conference was to support the incoming French Presidency in its efforts to strengthen the ESDP. Mr Javier SOLANA, EU Secretary General and High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), said he eagerly awaited the outcome of this conference, particularly in view of the work with which the EU Council had entrusted him in the framework of implementing the European Security Strategy, adopted in December 2003.

The Conference was opened by Jean-Claude MIGNON, Chairman of the French Delegation to the WEU Assembly, and Jean-Pierre MASSERET, President of the Assembly. Mr MIGNON said that defence was a key area for European progress. He considered that “beneath the blanket term ‘permanent structured cooperation’”, there lay hidden “great opportunities in the area of defence” that would allow a certain number of states that so wished to move forward. Mr MASSERET felt that there were gaps in the European Security Strategy that needed to be filled without delay, in particular by addressing nuclear and space questions. The EU’s political objectives also had to be clarified and the “common general interest” of all EU member states defined. The new provisions in the Lisbon Treaty concerning the ESDP formed a “complex patchwork”, the practical workings of which were yet to be defined.

During the first sitting on “the European Security Strategy, the Treaty of Lisbon and the European Union’s strategic environment”, the advances made by the Lisbon Treaty in the area of defence were examined. Véronique ROGER-LACAN, Deputy Director, European Affairs, Delegation of Strategic Affairs, Ministry of Defence, France, said that France was going to prepare an “ambitious” implementation of the Lisbon Treaty. She described permanent structured cooperation as “a sort of production incentive for defence capabilities” and expressed the hope that the new institutional provisions of the Lisbon Treaty in the area of the CFSP would enable “optimal use of civil and military capabilities” in the EU framework. To this end, a permanent military command and control chain for the conduct of operations within the EU (yet to be established) was just as essential as a civilian chain of command (that already existed). Antonio MISSIROLI, Director of Studies, European Policy Centre, Brussels, said there were new challenges that had to be factored into the European Security Strategy, in particular energy security and climate change, which could well lead to an ever-increasing number of conflicts. Regarding the implications of the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty for the CFSP, Mr MISSIROLI stressed that the new post of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the Commission would be “an almost impossible position” for one person to fill. He or she would require assistants and the system would be highly complex. Mr Solana’s report on the implementation of the European Security Strategy dealt mainly with the implementation of the ESDP. The report was due to be submitted for adoption in December 2008, coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the Franco-British Saint Malo Declaration, shortly after the election of the new American president and in principle just before the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. This run of events presented a clear opportunity to give fresh impetus to the ESDP, in particular through new Franco-British initiatives and renewed transatlantic dialogue, especially in view of the sixtieth anniversary of NATO. Sven BISCOP from the Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels addressed the more specific issue of permanent structured cooperation and the transformation of the member states’ capabilities. In his view, it was preferable not to define rigid statistical criteria that the member states would most likely not be able to meet. It would be better to set “criteria aimed at specific and concrete results, to be achieved gradually, as had been the case with the euro”, involving both national capabilities and capabilities pooled by several member states. As regards the European Security Strategy, Mr BISCOP felt that it was time to move beyond the current stage of general considerations and attempt to define the precise means of applying the Strategy, through specific intervention scenarios.

During the second sitting entitled “Common policies in strategic areas?”, Bernard SITT, Director of the Paris Centre for International Security and Arms Control Studies (CESIM), focused on possible common policies for dealing with the Iranian nuclear crisis and the increased risk of worldwide nuclear proliferation. He underlined the propensity of the United States to make major concessions to North Korea, while at the same time taking an increasingly hard line against Iran. He regretted the discrepancy in the American approach which he felt smacked of “post-traumatic stress” as regards Iran.

Professor Coby VAN DER LINDE, Director of the International Energy Programme, Clingendael, Netherlands Institute of International Relations in The Hague, underlined that there were sufficient oil reserves to meet world demand until 2020-2025, though production costs were increasing rapidly and geopolitical factors continued to have a daily impact on the global trade in energy. International energy markets were changing. Russia and new players such as China and India had to be taken into account. Unlike EU countries whose systems were largely governed by market principles, these states had adopted laws that were guided by government-set objectives. Susanne NIES, Institut Français de Relations Internationales (IFRI), Energy Programme, Head of IFRI Brussels, presented the challenges of a common policy on energy security. In particular, she raised the problem of the massive investments that would be required over the next 20 years in order to exploit the world’s energy resources. According to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA), these could amount to 16 000 billion dollars worldwide. For its part, the EU estimated that investments of up to 1000 billion dollars would be necessary to ensure energy security for the EU, which would require large-scale public-private partnerships.

The issue of a common policy on neighbourhood and partnerships was also addressed. Michael EMERSON from the Brussels Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) explored ways of making the EU neighbourhood policy to the east and south really effective. Despite considerable efforts on the part of the Commission, the neighbourhood policy had not yet had any real strategic impact on the recipient countries. Regarding the Union for the Mediterranean project, he felt that the Commission had to take action to make this initiative an integral part of the Barcelona Process. He called for parliamentarians to waste no time in establishing contacts with the moderate parties of the countries on the southern shores of the Mediterranean and thus counter the risk of their radicalisation for want of support in the face of what were often authoritarian and corrupt regimes. Laurent VINATIER, Associate Researcher at the Thomas More Institute in Paris, examined relations between the EU and the emerging economic actors in Russia and called on Europeans to support liberal elements in Russia. He felt that relations between the EU and Russia had largely deteriorated because “Europeans fear Russia and cannot agree on a strong policy towards this country”.

During the third sitting on “Extending the European Security Strategy and developing the Common Security and Defence Policy”, the speakers focused on various aspects of the current EU strategy with a view to supplementing it for the future. General Jean-Paul PERRUCHE, Consultant, former Director of the EU Military Staff, discussed ways of making the EU more responsive, more coherent and more effective in the area of crisis management and placed particular emphasis on the need to develop a permanent command structure. According to General PERRUCHE, while after five years of the ESDP and 17 operations the EU had become “a global actor whose action is appreciated everywhere”, it still had to step up efforts in the framework of the ESDP. The fact that a specific chain of command had to be developed for each operation showed the limitations of a system that relied on the “framework nation” principle. A permanent chain of command would enable the EU to simplify procedures for establishing operation headquarters, reduce associated costs and make the ESDP more efficient and more credible, even for operations conducted in the framework of the so-called Berlin Plus agreements between NATO and the EU. Fabio LIBERTI, from the Paris Institute for International and Strategic Relations, addressed the issue of pooling EU member states’ capabilities. He began by describing the global challenges of the coming decades, including among other things “terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and regional conflicts”. The EU had recognised competence in the field of crisis management and would most likely have greater responsibility to deal with such challenges given that the United States was suffering from a certain “loss of credibility” and it was impossible for them to intervene in some conflicts. The EU would therefore have to rise to the task in terms of both military and civil capabilities. Despite the relatively low military budgets of European countries, especially in comparison to US expenditure, “it is necessary to develop a competitive European defence equipment market”. Cooperation was essential as “no member state is capable of meeting the challenges of the future alone”.

The last sitting focused on the role of parliamentarians in implementing a new European Security Strategy. Hubert HAENEL, Head of the French Senate Delegation to the EU, stressed that national parliamentary scrutiny, exercised in isolation, was not enough to support the “joint” action of the governments of the EU member states. The European Parliament, although very active, was not in a position to exercise scrutiny over national governments in the field of ESDP. He proposed working towards an “interparliamentary” form of oversight, bringing together different forms of parliamentary scrutiny and democratic legitimacy, in particular the expertise of the WEU Assembly and the experience of COSAC. Daniel DUCARME (Belgium, Liberal Group), Rapporteur for the Assembly on the European Security Strategy, stressed the Assembly’s commitment to openness and dialogue with a view to finding solutions to ensure improved democratic scrutiny of the ESDP. But whatever course of action was taken, it had to lead to improved interparliamentary scrutiny and the COSAC model in its current form was not satisfactory. It needed to be combined with the expertise and in-depth political work that were the hallmark of the working committees of the WEU Assembly.

On behalf of Bernard ACCOYER, President of the French National Assembly, Jean-Claude MIGNON congratulated the different speakers on their excellent presentations and underlined the quality of the ensuing debates which had been open to all participants at the end of each session. He called on the national parliaments of the European states to continue supporting their governments, constantly called upon to make crucial choices for security and defence in Europe. The aim was to build a responsible and credible EU, capable of defending itself and ensuring effective crisis management, in tandem with other organisations, in particular NATO.

The conference proceedings and conclusions will be the subject of a report and recommendation to be submitted to the Assembly by the Political Committee, for adoption at the next plenary session from 3 to 5 June 2008 in Paris. The final report will be available from June 2008 on the Assembly website: www.assembly-weu.eu.