The militarisation process of the
European Union
Esko Seppänen, Member of the European
Parliament, in Berlin 23.3.2001
There is a spectre haunting in Europe, the
spectre of Euro-defence. It also is the ghost of Euro-assault because the EU-led crisis
management can also be peacemaking.
The member states are preparing collective crisis management for the EU, which at least
in the beginning would be completely NATO compatible. If some European countries have a
hidden intention to create a  European military union and drive the USA
out of Europe, it is not expressed openly. So the USA, with its nuclear weapon deterrence,
continues its presence in Europe, and there is no need in the EU to discuss a
Euro-bomb.
If the USA is driven out of Europe, the generals of the EU states want to replace its
nuclear deterrence with the EU’s own nuclear bomb.
The West no longer has its previous enemy figure, as the Soviet Union has collapsed and
the Warsaw Pact has been abolished. There is no fear of a major war, yet the peace has not
created a peace dividend to be distributed to improve people’s social welfare. On the
contrary, the EU is being militarised.
NATO represents a capital intensive and selective defence concept, based on air strikes
and precision target weapons. It has attempted to impose on its member countries an
obligation to spend 3 % of their gross national product on armaments. The share currently
spent by the USA is 3,2 %, by France 2,8 %, by the United Kingdom 2,5 % and by Germany
(and Finland) 1,5 % of GNP. The EU average is 2,2 %.
As part of the militarisation of EU, the member countries are requested to increase their
defence expenditure. In this way the EU may become - and there are many who want it to
become - a military-industrial complex, where arms industry and government orders function
as an engine for the economy in the same way as in the USA, a country which is trying to
prevent possible economic recession by planning a new missile defence system.
Missile defence would increase instability in the world by increasing the security deficit
of other countries. It might encourage others to increase their armament expenditure. If
that is going to happen, the world will be driven into an armament vicious circle. It may
also lead to new strategic alliances in which partners may be Russia, China, India, Iran
and Iraq and others. The possible consequences of such new alliances are unpredictable.
The political militarisation of the EU includes the participation of the Defence Ministers
in the meetings of the Council of General Affairs. In addition Defence Ministers hold,
together with NATO representatives, their own unofficial defence councils, even though
defence is not an EU competence. Permanent military institutions are being established for
the EU, and from 2003 onwards they will be in charge of the EU collective crisis
management, deploying NATO resources. Crisis management can also mean peacemaking,
i.e. war. The rapid reaction forces are not, according to the official statements, a
Euro-army but they may be its core. Within the EU, the civilian administration culture
will turn into a culture of military secrecy.
Especially problematic is the role of the person responsible for the EU’s foreign
policy, the former NATO General Secretary Javier Solana. As the General Secretary of the
Council, he is leading activities which bring NATO into the EU structures. This creates an
intolerable deficit of control and democracy. The European Parliament is the only
institution to whose competence supervision might belong, but now the political fortresses
of the defence dimension are being built into the structures of the Council, (not of the
Commission). The supervision of the Parliament does not reach there.
The documents, according to article 255 of the Treaty on European Union, on which the
preparation of military affairs is based, can be made secret by NATO, the EU being unable
to prevent that. All other EU countries except the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland
accepted this decision. Military co-operation between member countries, military
collaboration with NATO and the co-operation of espionage and intelligence organisations
(NSA and the French electronic espionage), represent a grey zone from the point of view of
the community institutions.
Mutual security guarantees
Most of the EU member states are members of the military alliance NATO, and they manage
their regional defence through NATO. The new military dimension of the EU is, in the
beginning, crisis management, using rapid deployment forces.
The member countries have a fatal connection to NATO, due to the Article V of the
Washington Treaty. They give each other mutual security guarantees: if one is attacked,
the others participate in the war.
Similar security guarantees have also been given in Article V of the founding treaty of
the Western European Union (WEU). They have been given in the form of NATO resources. As
defence affairs have now been taken into the authority of the EU, it has been in practise
possible to abolish the WEU. Its activities have been merged into the Union, and its
Article V has been put aside. The WEU’s satellite centre with its espionage data and
the security research centre are the EU’s new military organs.
The change in the nature of NATO
Behind the militarisation of the EU lie commitments that NATO countries of the EU have
made to NATO when the Washington Treaty was amended.
This took place at the 50th anniversary of the organisation in April 1999 in Washington. A
new strategic concept was ratified there. Besides that, new member countries were accepted
and NATO got a little bit closer to the Russian border. On the basis of the amended
Treaty:
1. NATO is not only a defence alliance but it can also attack outside the borders of
the member countries, and 2. NATO can attack based on its own decision without the mandate
of the UN Security Council.
NATO is not open to all countries as are the OESC or the UN. Thus it is not an
international community, and its decisions do not represent international justice. The
Kosovo war was illegal according to international law. The leaders of NATO and some of the
EU have officially been reported to be revealed to the International Court of War Crimes,
which, however, has taken no action against them because the Kosovo war had the political
acceptance of the governments of the EU and the NATO countries. The attacks were called
"humanitarian intervention", but this gave them only a political – not
legal – justification.
Likewise, the air raids against Iraq last February, carried out by the USA and Britain
were illegal.
In Washington, NATO and the EU agreed upon new lines in the implementation of the so
called Petersberg tasks. The EU was given access to NATO’s operational actions.
NATO’s military, planning communication and command systems are made compatible with
the needs of the EU. This makes EU crisis management , using NATO’s resources,
possible.
Crisis management
Crisis management was raised in Washington as one of the most central activities of
NATO, and countries which are not covered by the security guarantees of the USA can also
participate in it.
According to the Amsterdam Treaty of the EU, crisis management means "humanitarian
and rescue tasks, peace keeping tasks; and the tasks of combat forces in crisis
management, including peace making". The most warlike feature in this list is
peacemaking.
Crisis management can be based on the acceptance of the international community (UN,
OESC). But when the Europe Minister of Sweden, Lars Danielson replied to an oral question
at the European Parliament as to whether the UN mandate is obligatory, he managed to avoid
the question by saying that " the Security Council of the UN bears the main
responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security". The Council
declines mentioning that the mandate given by the UN is compulsory .
The documents of the Lisbon Summit include a paragraph concerning the purposes for which
Euro-troops can be used. They can be sent to conflicts "which involve disputes
between ethnic or religious groups, competition for scarce resources between states and
movements of people from their home region": There is no official decision on the
exact use of the troops. There is also no decision as to which institution in the EU has
the power to make operational decisions. There are three alternatives: the member states,
the Council or the Commission. All alternatives include a democratic deficit.
Step by step towards militarisation
As the integration of the European Union is being deepened, the EU will move on to new
fields of activity. This entails a new defence dimension for the EU.
Article J 7 of the Amsterdam Treaty was sufficient to enable a common defence for the EU.
The article is as follows:
"The Common foreign and security policy shall include all questions relating to the
security of the European Union, including the progressive framing of a Common defence
policy, in accordance with the second subparagraph, which might lead to a Common defence,
should the European Council so decide. It shall in that case recommend to the Member
States the adoption of such a decision in accordance with their respective constitutions.
"
On this basis there is no need to amend the Treaties of the Union for the defence element
of the EU to be deepened. The Amsterdam formulation makes it possible to advance all the
way to a common defence.
The Amsterdam Treaty introduced an institutional problem for the EU: the position of the
head of foreign and security policy was established outside the Commission. The problem
became worse as Javier Solana from NATO was appointed to the post.
The Amsterdam Treaty mentions only common foreign and security policy (CFSP). At the
Cologne Summit it became common security and defence policy (CESDP). When it was decided
in Cologne that "steps should be taken to reinforce the basis of the industrial and
technological basis of defence", the first step towards the development of the EU
into a military complex was taken.
Helsinki was an important step in the militarisation process of the EU. In December 1999
it was decided to establish permanent military institutions for the EU. Interim organs
were nominated to prepare them. The new military institutions are:
1) The Political and Security Committee dealing with all CFSP issues. In crisis
management led by the EU, this is a supranational organ for the supervision and strategic
management of operations.
2) The Military Committee, consisting of the commanders of armies and their military
representatives permanently present.
3) A General Staff supporting the implementation of the Petersberg duties and ESDP.
Among the important headline goals of Helsinki was the birth of the beginnings of a
Euro-army. The member countries committed themselves by the year 2003 to make operative
and maintain at least for a year rapid deployment forces consisting of 50 000 to 60 000
persons, capable of fulfilling all the Petersberg duties, including peacemaking. Due to
the rotation needs of the troops, this means a total of 200 000 soldiers.
A decision was also made to take action to prepare civil crisis management, but that is
only a smokescreen behind which military structures compatible with NATO can be built.
At the Brussels Capabilities Deployment Conference 21.11.2000, the member countries
specified troops to be placed at the disposal of the strike forces, and they were partly
the same as those used by NATO. The member countries listed for the use of the EU a force
of 100 000 men, 400 combat aircraft and 100 ships. Shortages were also listed, and as a
result a need arose for the building for the Euro troops of their own transport aircraft
and helicopters and to increase satellite intelligence activities.
After the Feira Summit it looked likely that flexibility and enhanced co-operation would
be extended to the defence dimension, but at the Nice Summit these matters did not
advance. In the Second Pillar of the EU, it was accepted that flexibility would apply only
to the enforcement of the decisions.
This kind of development will continue if the member countries share Tony Blair’s
view that the EU must be a super power in foreign politics. The super power identity of
the EU is being built.
PfP and PARP
When the Soviet Union was broken down and the Warsaw Pact was abolished, NATO lost its
enemy. In order to justify its existence, it had to find new duties.
A clever idea of having a Partnership for Peace (PfP) was invented. PfP’s military
objective was to increase the NATO compatibility and functioning of the military
organisations of the countries involved in the Partnership for Peace activities.
The PfP is a time out taken by NATO before accepting new countries into NATO. Through the
PfP, countries which are not members of NATO act in the way that NATO desires, yet NATO is
not obliged to give them collective security guarantees. The aim is to ally the ex-Soviet
countries politically to NATO.
A planning and assessment process (PARP) is also proceeding. It is now on its third stage.
At first (1995-1996), NATO symbols and maps were generally introduced, and leadership,
command, service and communication systems were made NATO compatible. In the second phase
(1997-1999), NATO compatibility was achieved in theory. Now in the third phase the
emphasis is on the increasing of operational capability through common military exercises.
These are exercises for war, not for peace.
In addition to political integration, co-operation is being carried out in the field of
material purchases. In the WEAG the member countries give and receive a list of all
material purchases for ground forces, navy and air forces, and in this way their
compatibility with NATO equipment is being tested. The big countries are not yielding
information on their needs in such detail as are the smaller countries.
As a result of all this development, an empty space has been created in Europe, a space
that was earlier filled with neutral and non-allied countries, with their initiatives for
peaceful solutions and co-operation. The most remarkable achievement of this was OESC. As
the non-allied countries committed themselves to NATO and are becoming NATO compatible,
the empty political space will be filled by NATO with its new antimissile defence system,
new armament orders and expansion towards other countries’ raw material resources.
NATO approaches the Russian borders. At the same time Russia is politically supporting the
adoption and strengthening of the Euro defence and Euro-army. It estimates that the
EU’s own military dimension would weaken NATO, but in that issue the Russians are
most obviously wrong.
In ten years’ time the EU states will be totally dependent on the oil and gas
imported from Russia and ex-Soviet regions. The route of oil and gas pipes from the East
has increased NATO’s activity in the capitals of Azerbaidzan, Georgia and Ukraine.
Are we waging an endless war over the world’s energy reserves?
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