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Procedure : 2002/2532(RSP)
Document stages in plenary
Document selected : B5-0187/2002

Texts tabled :

B5-0187/2002

Debates :

Votes :

Texts adopted :

P5_TA(2002)0171

Texts adopted
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Wednesday, 10 April 2002 - Strasbourg
Defence policy, including EU/NATO relations
P5_TA(2002)0171B5-0187/2002

European Parliament resolution on the present state of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and EU-NATO relations

The European Parliament,

A.  recalling that the development of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and the creation of structures allowing the European Union to implement a policy of conflict prevention and civil and military crisis management were undertaken with the intention of lending credibility to a coherent Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) which serves the global interest and universal values, as these have been expressed in the Charter of the United Nations,

B.  recognising that NATO is the military security organisation for collective defence and that European states need to make a greater and more effective contribution in sharing the burden of allied security and defence responsibilities,

C.  having regard to the declaration of the Laeken European Council on the operational capability of ESDP, which should enable the European Union to analyse and plan, to take decisions and, where NATO as such is not involved, to launch and carry out military crisis management operations,

D.  noting that, for effective crisis management by the Union, the balanced development of military and civilian capabilities is necessary, which implies close coordination between all resources and instruments, both civilian and military, available to the Union,

E.  aware of the considerable shortfalls in key military capabilities and assets that would ensure that the whole range of the Petersberg tasks could be carried out by easy deployment, full mobility, secure and interoperable communications and sustainability in the field,

F.  noting that key capability gaps highlighted by the Capability Improvement Conference of 19 November 2001 include strategic shortfalls in air transport systems and in the field of C 3-I systems (command, control, communication and intelligence) as well as tactical shortfalls in other areas,

G.  whereas the Union's crisis management capability has been strengthened by the recent development of close consultation and cooperation between the EU and NATO in crisis management in the Western Balkans,

H.  concerned, however, that the security arrangements with NATO and agreements on guaranteed access to the Alliance's operational planning, presumption of availability of pre-identified assets and capabilities of NATO, and identification of a series of command options made available to the Union, have still not been concluded,

I.  alarmed at the widening technological gap, as highlighted in the Kosovo crisis and the war in Afghanistan, between American and European forces, as a result of which European troops tend to lose the ability to work in coalitions with US forces and therefore even coherence within the Atlantic Alliance is threatened,

J.  welcoming the advances made in defining concrete targets for the civilian aspects of crisis management, especially in the areas of police, the rule of law and civil protection; recognising that further work is needed to define qualitative requirements in these areas and the scope and nature of the EU's civil administration capacity,

K.  noting that the further development of the EU's civilian crisis management capabilities will require a thorough needs assessment to identify other areas in which the EU should develop its capabilities, and improved mechanisms to ensure that civilian crisis management is compatible with Community activities and contributes to the capacities of the EU to prevent conflicts,

L.  recognising that in the post-11 September world the fight against international terrorism has become a major objective of the ESDP which, however, cannot be carried out by military means alone, and that the prevention and repression of terrorism requires a whole range of non-military measures such as intelligence-sharing and police and judicial cooperation, for which full interinstitutional and inter-pillar cooperation will be needed, or the building of democratic institutions, infrastructure and civil society in failed or failing states,

M.  whereas this fight against international terrorism should not impinge on the political, social and human rights of citizens, and should not be a pretext for supporting massive repressive acts by governments against their citizens; also stressing that the EU's greatest contribution to preventing international terrorism will be its capacity to be effective in the building or rebuilding of democratic institutions, social and economic infrastructure, good governance and civil society,

1.  Welcomes the progress made so far on the establishment of EU crisis management structures and procedures, as well as the commitments by Member States on military and civilian capabilities which will enable the EU to carry out police missions and limited military crisis management operations at the lower end of the Petersberg tasks such as humanitarian and rescue tasks and peace-keeping tasks;

2.  Supports therefore the Council's decision of 18/19 February 2002 on an EU police mission (EUPM) in Bosnia-Herzegovina to start by 1 January 2003 as the follow-on to the United Nations International Police Task Force (IPTF);

3.  Considers the EUPM in Bosnia-Herzegovina to be an important civilian crisis management intervention within the framework of ESDP and the broader approach of the stabilisation and association process for the whole region;

4.  Is of the opinion that the start-up costs of EUR 14 million for 2002, as well as the larger part of 20 million out of the EUR 38 million yearly running costs for 2003 - 2005, should be financed through the CFSP budget on condition that there is proper consultation of the European Parliament within the framework of the budgetary procedure; this also includes an agreement between the two arms of the budgetary authority on a general flexibility instrument within the EU budget for financing civilian crisis management operations;

5.  Supports the declaration of intent of the Barcelona European Council to deploy the EU Rapid Reaction Force for its first peace-keeping mission in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia by taking over NATO' s operation "Amber Fox', which already consists only of European troops;

6.  Considers such a mission, which would depend on access to NATO's planning (Shape) and command capacities (D-Saceur), to be of great symbolic and practical importance for the EU's credibility in crisis management;

7.  Is of the opinion that in the case of an EU-led operation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia the required recourse to NATO's planning and command structures should not prejudice any general agreement on the involvement of non-EU NATO countries;

8.  Considers that the first attempt to reach an agreement with Turkey has been made outside the EU decision-making procedures, and expects that an overall EU-NATO agreement on the use of NATO assets and capabilities will not undermine the decision-making autonomy of the Union; calls on the Commission and the Council to make a statement to Parliament on the negotiating mandate for this issue;

9.  Underlines that expenditure on operations with military or defence implications should be shared between Member States and the Community;

10.  Urges the governments of Member States to give absolute priority in their defence procurement to fulfilling the requirements of the Rapid Reaction Force by focusing on equipment and technology that would improve its capacities to carry out Petersberg-type missions; this would imply the need for more interoperability and standardisation of the military equipment of European forces, which can be used both within an EU-ESDP context and in a NATO context;

11.  Urges the Member States to assign importance to the quality of the EU military and police forces and to ensure that persons who participate have a deep and thorough understanding of their task;

12.  Welcomes the creation of 14 multi-disciplinary working groups under the Spanish Presidency to examine the most crucial shortfalls in the 40 areas where deficiencies in military equipment have been identified;

13.  Is of the opinion that improving military capacities is not only a question of adequate defence budgets but can primarily be achieved by rationalising defence efforts, by increasing synergy between national and multinational projects and by further abolition of obsolete Cold War structures and forces; considers that the establishment of the Capability Development Mechanism as agreed at the Göteborg European Council signifies that now is the time to relaunch action in this area as an integral element of the European Capability Action Plan;

14.  Expresses its view that a strong, efficient and viable European armament industry, including research and development capacities, and an effective procurement policy are vital to the development of the ESDP and are a prerequisite if the European defence industry is to compete on more equal terms with the US industry; is concerned, in this connection, about the substantial investments which some Member States plan to make in research and development by American arms companies;

15.  Calls on the Commission, in this respect, to present to the Council and Parliament a revised version of its 1997 Action Plan, a revision which is to mention, inter alia, whether the Commission could finance feasibility studies on the procurement of support equipment of non-military origin to be deployed by Member States' armed services, for example the adaptation of existing civil aircraft to perform the in-flight refuelling tanker role;

16.  Considers in this context the development and purchase of the A 400 M aircraft by eight European countries to be an essential element in deployment capability, to ensuring the full mobility of European troops;

17.  Believes that defence standardisation is imperative and calls on the governments of the Member States to assign higher priority to the creation of a European Armament Agency and to envisage the possibility of purchasing military equipment in a pool and to facilitate its joint use;

18.  Calls on the Council, in the implementation of its European Capabilities Action Plan, to establish within the existing bodies, notably the Military Committee and the Headline Goal Task Force, a systematic procedure for reviews and consultations at EU level concerning all national long-term defence procurement and planning programmes, with a view to seeking maximum efficiency and economies of scale from the outset, for instance with the UK's "Future Offensive Air System' programme;

19.  Reiterates its view that the control and restraint of arms exports, as well as an efficient policy to counter the global proliferation of small arms to regions of tension and to all types of official and less official combatants, should be considered an integral part of the ESDP and the EU's trade policy;

20.  Shares the view that after the declaration of the Laeken European Council on the operability of the European Rapid Reaction Force it is time to formalise the meetings of EU defence ministers at Council level and regular reports to the European Parliament;

21.  Recalls Belgium's initiative of drawing up a White Paper on European security in close coordination with NATO and calls on the Spanish Presidency to proceed with this project as a matter of urgency;

22.  Stresses the need to examine to what extent the full range of Petersberg missions should be redefined to include appropriate countermeasures against international terrorism and, as necessary, to adapt the headline goal and the civilian aspects of crisis management; points out that such a redefinition should not extend to the possibility of pre-emptive strikes against third parties;

23.  Calls on the Presidency to report back to Parliament's responsible committee on the experiences it will gain from the EU military exercise in May 2002 which will involve command-and-control procedures rather than troops in the field;

24.  Demands that the Commission undertake, in cooperation with the Presidency, a comprehensive needs-based study on civilian crisis management capabilities, to enable the EU to define its goals in the areas of civil administration, to refine and extend its capability goals in other areas of civilian crisis management, and to ensure that identified crisis management needs can be met by coherent and concerted deployment of Member States' capabilities and Community instruments, and that these efforts are integrated with and support longer-term conflict prevention initiatives;

25.  Calls further on the Presidency to report in full, in its proposed report on conflict prevention (Seville), on all progress that has been made in line with the recommendations of the Göteborg Action Plan, the Commission communication and Parliament's resolution of 13 December 2001 on conflict prevention(1), in particular, on the issues of mainstreaming of conflict prevention in all EU external relations, the involvement of international and local civil societies in activities for conflict prevention and management, and intensified cooperation with the UN and the OSCE; recalls that crisis prevention and civil crisis management are a first-pillar issue with clear responsibilities for the Commission and the European Parliament;

26.  Recalls that responsibility for parliamentary monitoring of European security and defence policy is shared between the European Parliament and the national parliaments on the basis of their respective rights and duties under relevant treaties and constitutions; reiterates its view that in this perspective the WEU Parliamentary Assembly should be discontinued;

27.  Notes that military expenditure and the deployment of national armed forces continue to fall within the exclusive competence of the national parliaments but that the running costs of EU joint actions for crisis management should be covered by the Community budget and therefore controlled by the European Parliament;

28.  Calls therefore for closer relations and an intensified exchange of information between the European Parliament and national parliaments in relation to questions concerning the CFSP and the ESDP, in order to make more extensive dialogue between the parliaments possible;

29.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council and the governments of the Member States.

(1) Texts Adopted, Item 15.

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