Green light for EU arms agency

A plan to set up a European defence agency was set in motion on Monday by the EU’s foreign ministers.

According to Italian defence minister Antonio Martino the agency should be in operation by next year.

He said it would tackle the current problem where the EU spent half of what the US spends on defence but only achieves ten per cent of US capacity.

Agreement has been reached to set up a team to identify gaps in Europe’s existing defence capabilities and find “European solutions” to fill them.

Announcing the plan, UK Defence Minister Geoff Hoon said the agency would help Europe to meet the so-called ‘Helsinki headline goal’ of creating a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force by the end of 2003.

Work on the Helsinki goal must be completed “so Europe can do more than the smallest and least demanding operations,” he argued.

Responding to accusations that American defence companies could lose out to their European counterparts in meeting the EU’s capability needs, Hoon denied that Europe’s latest move was “protectionist.”

“Obviously if we can develop appropriate European solutions to fill the gaps in those capabilities then it is right and proper to assist our industry and our people,” he said, but added, “there should not be an automatic assumption that it will be a European solution.”

The agency’s task of highlighting Europe’s defence shortfalls is likely to fuel UK resistance to attempts by some EU member states to set up autonomous European military planning headquarters.

London has made no secret of its opposition to moves by France and Germany to create independent operational planning HQ, which they originally proposed to set up in the Brussels suburb of Tervuren.

With strong support from Washington, the UK has argued against the expensive and  unnecessary duplication of resources that such a headquarters could provoke.

“We do not judge that it would be militarily effective and, in the end, when there are scarce resources… and here we are struggling to fill capabilities then we should not be talking about creating institutions that are not necessary,” Hoon argued.

“We have never seen the location in a Brussels suburb as being a crucial factor,” he said, stressing the UK position to use existing capabilities in national headquarters and NATO’s planning HQ, SHAPE for future EU-led operations.

The use of national headquarters had worked well in the French-led peacekeeping mission to Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he pointed out.

Speaking to reporters in the margins of the Brussels meeting, Hoon indicated UK’s willingness to step into a leadership role if the EU takes over NATO’s peacekeeping mission in Bosnia.

But he said this would only take place when NATO officially decided to hand over the reins and after certain details had been clarified.

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