Statement To The House By The
Secretary Of State On European Defence Co-Operation
 
(Source : UK Ministry of Defence ; issued Nov. 22, 2000)

(Editor's note:
This statement was made on Nov. 22 by Geoff Hoon,
UK state secretary of defense, to the House of Commons)
 
 
With permission I would like to make a statement to the House about recent developments in European Defence co-operation. There are those who, in recent days, have frankly become hysterical ­some seeing elephants at every turn. I would like to try to set out the facts and separate them from the fiction.

"Our aim is the improvement of European military capabilities to deal with the security challenges now facing us. These enhanced capabilities will be available to the countries concerned, to the European Union and to NATO. This is a key step towards achieving our goal of strengthening the European pillar of NATO and encouraging our European partners to do more.

"This is an aim that everyone in this House should share. It is about making it easier for British armed forces to deploy in a multi-national context something which is a routine requirement of modern operations. I visited this morning the Royal Regiment of Wales and the Royal Green Jackets, currently serving in Paderborn in Germany. They emphasised the number of recent occasions when they had been deployed alongside European forces, from Holland, from France and from Italy.

"I would like to set out just what we have been discussing this week at the Capabilities Commitments Conference in Brussels. Last year, at the Helsinki Summit, it was agreed that European Union nations should, by 2003, be able to deploy rapidly up to 60,000 ground troops to meet the full range of crisis management tasks. These troops could either contribute to NATO-led operations or, where NATO as a whole was not engaged, to European-led crisis management missions.

"Over the past two days, European partners both in the European Union and those outside it have been identifying the type and level of forces that they might be able to make available to Petersberg operations. This is not a standing European army. It is a pool of potentially available national forces. It envisages full transparency and consultation with NATO as a potential crisis develops. It would then be for contributing countries to decide whether, when and how to deploy its forces. No country would have to take part. The British Prime Minister, answerable to this House, will always have the final say over the use and deployment of British armed forces.

"NATO is, and will remain, the cornerstone of European defence. It alone remains responsible for the collective territorial defence of its member states. The European Union has stated repeatedly that its aim is to have the ability to conduct military crisis management operations only where NATO as a whole is not engaged. Nothing that has been done in the European Union this week changes any of that. For the foreseeable future, major operations of this sort would draw on NATO assets and use NATO operational planning and command structures it would, in short, be NATO-supported. So, it is time we lowered the temperature and raised the tone of the debate.

"One way of doing this is to place the current developments in context. In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty established the present framework of the European Union. It was this Treaty which established the so-called ‘second pillar’ of a Common Foreign and Security Policy. It said that member states ‘shall define and implement a common foreign and security policy’ and went on to specify that this ‘shall include all questions related to the security of the Union, including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence’.

"That policy was signed up to by the last Conservative Government, signed up to by the Rt Hon Member for Huntingdon as well as the current Leader of the Opposition. And, through the Western European Union, the last Government explicitly promoted the development of a European capability for use when NATO as a whole was not engaged. They seem to have forgotten that.

"I assume that this policy is still supported by the Rt Hon Member for Huntingdon. Those who look for consistency in their politicians might assume that the Leader of the Opposition would still support a policy he signed up to as an ambitious Minister in Government. At least, in terms of consistency, it can be said of the Shadow Defence Spokesman that he has consistently opposed Maastricht and consistently opposed the European Union. His Euro-sceptic opposition is now leading the Conservative Party with its leader jumping on the anti-European bandwagon.

"The Leader of the Opposition should not try to hide behind NATO. It was NATO at Berlin in 1996 that offered to make its assets available for European operations. And it was NATO at the Washington summit last year that offered its support for the European Defence Initiative.

"So the policy we are discussing today has not suddenly appeared. In fact what we are doing is a long way short of the aspirations to which the last Government agreed.

"I apologise for this short history lesson Mr Speaker. It is important to be clear that the aim I declared at the beginning the improvement of European capabilities - is not only an aim that all parties have shared: it is an aim that has already been pursued over several years.

"Yet if it is necessary for Europeans to do more, why don’t they simply take action within NATO? The answer of course is that we do take action within NATO. The fundamental structures of co-operation are there in planning, in training, and command and control arrangements. What we are doing through the European Union will complement this action.

"There are three main reasons for saying so:

"First, there is a clear imbalance in capabilities between the Europeans and the United States. This has grown over the last decade. Kosovo was a wake-up call. Both the US and NATO strongly support increased efforts by Europe to respond to this challenge.

"Not a single senior figure in the US administration is opposed to these proposals. Madeline Albright described Monday’s conference in Brussels as “a strongly positive development we wholly support.” At the recent NATO conference at Birmingham, Bill Cohen, the US Defense Secretary said “Let me be clear on the American position we agree with this goal, not grudgingly, not with resignation but with wholehearted conviction.”

"The effort now being put into developing better European capabilities an effort led by Britain is beginning to have an effect. For years, defence budgets around Europe have been falling. Next year, according to figures given to NATO by its member nations, defence spending will rise in real terms in 11 of the 16 European states of NATO. The restructuring of armed forces to make them better equipped to face today’s challenges is taking place in a number of EU countries.

"Second, the European Union is actively involved in crises through economic sanctions, diplomatic measures and humanitarian aid - but it has lacked clout. In security matters, especially in a real crisis, political weight reflects military weight. The EU has lacked a practical method for mobilising a military response.

"The third reason is that additional political will and momentum for Europe to improve its capabilities is best generated through NATO and the EU. The multi-dimensional nature of security issues demands a co-ordinated political response. And for that, frankly, we would be failing if we did not make full use of the mechanisms offered by the European Union.

"The Capability Commitments Conference earlier this week is neither something to fear nor something to scaremonger about. On the contrary, we as a nation should be delighted to see our European partners making a serious commitment to improving their capability to be able to respond to crisis management situations. It strengthens the military capability and resolve in the EU, and also strengthens the capability within the NATO Alliance.

"This is a statement of requirement a goal a level of ambition. It is a means of galvanising action. That is why it is called the Headline Goal. It is not a European Army: it is not even a standing Rapid Reaction Force. Nor is it confined to the European Union. On Tuesday, we heard from non-EU NATO nations and from the 15 EU aspirants. They too support this goal. They too have offered forces towards it. Yet as we have seen, the Opposition would pull Britain out of this process. They would have us isolated not only among EU members, but also non-EU European states.

"Since Helsinki, military experts both from EU countries and from NATO have developed a detailed statement of requirement for the pool of forces and capabilities needed to cover the Petersberg tasks peacekeeping, peace support and peace enforcement. On Monday, countries nominated elements of their national forces which they believed could contribute to this requirement. The process of identifying these forces is, in principle, no different to the process of declaring forces to NATO or to the United Nations. We need the ability to assemble the right sort of force quickly for a range of possible operations.

"The key difference about the current initiative is that capabilities are being identified against a specific goal. The countries involved are demonstrating their determination to follow-through on the areas of shortfall and deficiency which this process will highlight. So, this is a step in a process, not the end of the road. We are perfectly well aware that there are many detailed issues to be followed up both in the EU and in NATO.

"Like others, the UK has identified a pool of forces and capabilities as its contribution towards achievement of the Headline Goal. These forces provide for a balance across the full range of Petersberg tasks, including the most demanding. In the maximum scale operation envisaged at Helsinki a corps level deployment of up to 60,000 ground troops the UK land component could be about 12,000 strong. Maritime and air deployments of up to 18 warships and 72 combat aircraft could be made in addition. I set all this out in more detail in my response to the question from the Hon friend, the Member for Loughborough, on Monday.

"Mr Speaker, let me be clear about what this initiative is, and what it is not.

"It is a planning process to ensure a more effective defence effort by European forces. It is a mechanism to improve European contributions to NATO and to ensure that European nations can in future play a more effective part in Alliance operations. It will encourage more efficient and targeted defence spending by our European friends. And it will ensure that when NATO is not engaged the European Union can act effectively in a wide range of peace support operations, if and when its member nations want it to.

"It is not a European army or even a standing reaction force. It is not an agreement to give up or reduce Britain’s sovereign control over British forces, and it is not a commitment to undertake operations we would not previously have wished to take part in. It is not therefore a new burden for our Armed Forces.

"Those who have said this either do not understand what is happening or deliberately seek to mislead for reasons of political opportunism. The success of our armed forces in co-operating with our partners and allies deserves better.

"The Opposition should be ashamed of themselves for trying to use our Armed Forces to further their own anti-European obsessions.
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