The Future Organisation

of the EU Military Structures

European defence is now a reality. Since the decision taken in December 2000 to equip the European Union with political-military structures, major steps have been completed each year : establishment of the European Union Military Staff in Brussels in 2001, drawing up of a set of concept papers includind those dealing with strategic planning and command and control, then testing of the EUs crisis management procedures in 2002 and drawing up of the Berlin plus arrangements establishing a framework for its strategic partnership with NATO in military crisis management in 2003. In the same year, the first European military operation was planned and conducted in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, with the use of NATO resources and capabilities. Simultaneously, the decision was taken, in just a few days, in liaison with the UN and without calling on NATO, by virtue of the framework nation concept, to conduct a second military operation, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as far as more than 6.000 km from Europe. These two military operations have proven highly instructive, in addition to those lessons identified as a result of the decision-making exercises CME/CMX 03, the scenario for which involved NATO for the first time, and CME 04, with the participation of the UK Permanent Joint Headquarters playing as an EU Operations Headquarters. The European Union Military Staff is currently engaged in assessing all the lessons identified, in order to take them into account during the planning for the mission that the EU will run in Bosnia and Herzegovina once NATO has concluded its present SFOR military mission.

BY

LIEUTENANT GENERAL JEAN-PAUL PERRUCHE, DIRECTOR EUROPEAN UNION MILITARY STAFF (EUMS)

The Military Missions of the ESDP

The current missions of the European Security and Defence Policy are still largely based on the famous Petersberg tasks, defined

in 1992 at a WEU Council. The European Union has incorporated the possible military missions into its Treaty (Article 17), defining them as humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat

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forces in crisis management, including peacemaking. While such EU missions may lead to highly intensive military operations, the member states have also limited them in scope : common defence is envisaged only European Council so decide. Nevertheless and consequently, it is not possible at prresent to organize a joint European mission on the territory of one of the Member

States : such an operation can legally be envisaged only via another organisation NATO or the WEU - or bilaterally. However, several recent events are likely to cause this perspective to change. Firstly, the dramatic events since 11 September 2001 have heightened awareness of the threats to populations and highlighted the scope of the action that needs to be taken at the international level. Several weeks ago, the EU Member States appointed a CounterTerrorism Coordinator and decided to act in the spirit of the solidarity clause provided for in the draft Constitution for Europe.

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This clause would authorise EU assistance to any Member State that fell victim to a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, through the mobilisation of all possible EU instruments, including military assets (e.g. helicopters, mobile medical installations, decontamination equipment). This opens a significant field for international civilian-military cooperation. At the same time, the European Union Military Staff is working on a database of military assets of Member States voluntary contributions, which could be used in such cases. Simultaneously, discussions on major interests in Europe are continuing, since the draft Constitution for Europe also envisages the establishment of closer cooperation in the field of mutual defence in the event of one of the participating States being the subject of armed aggression on its territory. Secondly, the European Security Strategy, adopted in December 2003, has given rise to new military tasks in addition to those, at present, listed in the Treaty on European Union. This common European vision has pinpointed the threats that the European Union is most likely to have to face within the years ahead : terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, organised crime, and regional insecurity, often directly or indirectly affecting European interests. European Union Military Staff planners will now have to make allowance for new, complex scenarios, based on operations involving embargoes, disarmament or intervention after a terrorist attack, in order to determine the capabilities required in the future for an effective response. Since none of those threats is purely military in nature, the EU will have to endeavour to use its military and civilian means together in countering each one individually or any combination of them. The EUs ability to combine the whole range of instruments at its disposal and to enhance civilianmilitary cooperation within the EU will have significant implications for the accomplishment of its missions in the field of security and defence and the contribution which it can make to international stability within the years ahead. Political and Security Committee (PSC), as the European body that exercises political control and strategic direction, is responsible for choosing the strategic military option to be implemented during the operation. It selects also the strategic civilian options and makes sure their overall coherence. On the basis of this politicalstrategic choice, and the approval of the PSC, the EU Military Staff will prepare guidances for the military operational planning phase. It is in accordance with those guidelines that the forces necessary for carrying out the mission will be identified and then generated, in cooperation with Member States and other States taking part in the operation. Operational planning will be the responsibility of an Operation Headquarters (OHQ), designated by the EU for the duration of the mission, which will be led by the Operation Commander and will consist of military and civilian personnel from the participating States. Five Member States 1 have proposed that their national operations headquarters could be used for possible EU missions. Thus, the French Centre de planification et de conduite des oprations planned and conducted Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of Congo under the political control of the PSC. Where there is access to NATO assets and capabilities, it will be preferable to establish the EU Operations Headquarters within SHAPE under the orders of the Deputy SACEUR (DSACEUR), who is always a European General. This organisation was used to plan and implement Operation Concordia in FYROM last year, and is also being considered for a possible EU operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina within the months ahead. Member States recently decided to set up an additional structure in the form of a European Operations Center, to be activated when needed for Union operations without access to NATO resources. The EU Military Staff is involved in all aspects relating to the establishment of the Center (Personnel, facilities, equipments and procedures). The nucleus of the future Operations Centre will be established within the EU Military Staff, in a civilianmilitary planning unit, which will, as from this year, extend the Military Staffs mandate to include operational planning on the basis of a PSC decision. It will also enable planners from different backgrounds to work within the same structure and to share their experiences from very early on in the planning process. Improved civilian-military synergies will thus be put in place in the operational sphere pending finalisation of the relevant provisions of the future Constitution for Europe : the future European External Action Service is to bring together personnel from the General Secretariat of the Council (potentially both civilian and military) and from the Commission and the national diplomatic services. These provisions also support the EUs endeavours to maximise its rapid

European Command and Planning Capabilities

Unlike NATO, the European Union does not have a permanent operational chain of command and control at its disposal. The entire military command structure for a specific operation is defined on a case-by-case basis in an EU joint action providing it with the necessary legal framework. The European Union Military Staff is responsible for strategic planning, i.e. for developing strategic military options that could potentially be implemented during the operation. From this stage onwards, such military options are coordinated with potential strategic civilian options : police or civil protection forces, civil administrators and law enforcement officials, etc. The EUs

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reaction capability. In cooperation with all the potential Operations Headquarters, the Military Staff will work simultaneously on advance planning on which the military and civilian planners will have to be able to rely if a decision is taken to launch an urgent European operation. At the same time, on an operational level, the EU is currently considering the establishment of bodies of interlocking forces, including their own naval or air deployment means, which would be deployable within a few days for an operation without NATO involvement. Work is currently under way on the range of potential missions (including under a UN mandate), on the involvement of individual Member States, the training

and certification of forces concerned and the possible relationship with the NATO Response Force, which will also be drawing on the same pool of rapidly deployable national forces.

The Requirements for Success

The momentum of this work acts as a considerable spur to those involved and poses a real challenge. On the one hand, the European Union Military Staff has to assimilate successfully, by stages, officers from the ten new Member States. Their first steps in the Military Staff appear very promising in terms of their motivation and their dynamism. On the other hand, the EU must actively promote the

combined use of the EUs military and civilian means, which entails a need for closer collaboration between officers from the EU Military Staff and their civilian partners of all kinds : diplomats, analysts, police officers, financiers, academics and humanitarian actors. Finally, it is essential that a real effort be made to improve military capabilities in order to adapt the EUs capabilities to the vision set out by the European Security Strategy, and to the aspirations afforded by the prospective Constitution for Europe. A new objective must be pursued via the future Headline Goal 2010 , now bringing qualitative criteria to bear in efforts to improve capabilities. Setting up at the end of this year the European

Defence Agency should strongly facilitate its implementation. 2003 saw the European Union conduct its first two military operations. 2004 is seeing a number of new developments : namely the follow on to the SFOR mission, currently led by NATO in Bosnia and Herzegovina, utilising both military and civilian instruments, successful enlargement, institutional adjustments required to make civilian-military cooperation more effective, and practical efforts to improve military capabilities, on which the real credibility of the European Security and Defence Policy depends.

1 Germany, France, Greece, Italy and the United Kingdom.

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