European Security and Defence Policy [print sheet]
Last updated: 22/08/08

Since the collapse of Communism in the late 1980s, the EU has tried to expand its role in defence through part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) called the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). The EU's weakness during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, where the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the USA led operations, was seen to demonstrate the need for EU member states to work together on defence. However this has at times proved confusing and difficult as EU defence somewhat duplicates both NATO's and individual member states' existing defence activities.

ESDP came into being at the 1999 Helsinki European Council where member states set themselves a defence capability target called the Helsinki Headline Goal (HHG). This called for the EU to be able to deploy a Rapid Reaction Force of up to 60,000 combat troops at sixty days notice for missions including crisis management, peacekeeping and peace-making operations. However in June 2004 the HHG was reformed to replace large deployments with a series of European Battle-groups of 1,500 troops, provided either by single nations or by groups of nations (known as Headline Goal 2010).

Since 2003 the EU has conducted 19 civilian and military operations, including three military peacekeeping missions, in Macedonia (Operation Concordia, 2003), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Operation Artemis, 2003), and Bosnia-Herzegovina (Operation Althea, 2004). The EU acted independently in the case of DR Congo, but with access to NATO's equipment and command structures in the case of Macedonia and Bosnia. The EU is currently involved in a peacekeeping mission in Chad, on the Western border of Darfur in Sudan, where a genocide has been taking place since 2003. It is also conducting a police and justice mission in Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in February 2008. This mission was nearly compromised in April 2008 when Russia argued that it was illegal and that the UN should police Kosovo's transition to independence instead of the EU.

Headline Goal 2010 changed the military focus of ESDP to a more flexible approach. Through battle-groups, the aim is to allow the EU to run more than one operation concurrently and tackle a number of different scenarios, such as separating parties by force, conflict prevention and reconstruction. The EU has also begun to look at improving areas of defence technology weakness across member states. The European Defence Agency (EDA) was created at the Thessaloniki European Council in 2003 to create a common European agenda for research, development and production of new weapons; and to break down cross-border trade in military goods. At present, the EU relies on the Berlin Plus agreement of March 2003 to meet any military shortfalls, which allows the EU access to NATO planning and command structures and equipment during its operations.

Overall responsibility for the ESDP lies with the High Representative for the CFSP, currently Javier Solana. It is co-ordinated by the Political and Security Committee (PSC), the EU Military Committee (EUMC) and the EU Military Staff (EUMS), which are made up of military personnel from the member states. Decisions on ESDP are ultimately made by member states in the Council of the European Union, each member has a veto. However, the Lisbon Treaty will change the way ESDP decisions are made from 2009. The number of areas in which the national veto can be used will be reduced by the increased use of Qualified Majority Voting. The Lisbon Treaty will also create a new High Representative for the Union in Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

For

• All member states face the same security threats so they should work together to protect each other.
• The USA can no longer carry the majority of the burden of defence through NATO - the EU needs to pull its own weight.
• ESDP allows Europe to pursue its own defence agenda, rather than that laid down by the USA.

Against

• Democratically elected representatives should make decisions about war and peace. The ESDP is run by an unelected and therefore less accountable High Representative.
• ESDP diverts resources away from existing organisations such as NATO.

''European countries need to make more of a contribution in terms of defence capabilities. It is not fair…to keep turning to our ally in the United States to contribute military forces to problems which involve our own security.' - Geoff Hoon, British Defence Secretary, 2004

'[ESDP] wastes already meagre continental European defence budgets on EU structures that mirror proven NATO institutions.' - Geoffrey van Orden MEP, 2003