Paseo de Castellana 46, Madrid, Spain, 10 o'clock.
In the European Commision and Parliament building in Madrid starts the international conference or maybe it's better to say the seminar about European Union Security and Defense Policy, shortly ESDP.
Fundación Alternativas, exactly OPEX (Observatorio de Política Exterior España), together with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and IRIS (Institut de Relations Internacionales et Stratégiques) represented by Borja Lasheras (FA), Cristoph Pohlmann and Cristos Katsioulis (F-E-S) and Fabio Liberti (IRIS-France) presented the proposal for White Book of ESDP.
One of the first held questions was "Why we need the White Book of ESDP?". And perhaps everybody knows why and that is just open secret.
ESDP celebrates 10 years anniversary, but it works mainly somewhere outside EU borders. Peace-keeping and the same kind missions are the best examples, with which ESDP could be described in action.
As all Conference's participants agreed, there aren't any objective criteria and priorities for ESDP missions and if we want to enhance efficiency of this program, we should first concur some basic rules for decision-making process.
The second mentioned point was, that despite EU has all military and civil capabilities, but it's not single union in security and defense terms, not united, and nevertheless we try to take a position of "actor completo", we always have thousands of discussions and influence of interests (of policy-makers or institutions). Furthermore, as later was observed very well, with such security and defense strategy, or it's better to say without strategy at all, EU could not obtain its exact position in the international area.
Of course, Saint Petersberg Tasks is one of the issues as well.
What Cristoph Pohlmann spotts, EU needs to make a balance between civil and military capabilities. In the 96 pages whole document there are concrete recommendations concerning civil capabilities' improvement.
Moreover, there should be established something like EU operational headquarter with cooperation between civil and military sides.
And what about NATO? It's possible to overcome differences of NATO. Solidarity mechanism - EU should not develop as a military alliance, do not compete with NATO, because there is still a lack of European security culture.
Christos Katsioulis see two main "flash-lights" - criteria of engagement and EU-NATO relations.
From historical point of view, EU has had ad-hoc decisions and at the moment it's not clear why we are engaging in the missions. 22 missions around ES just display the point.
Drawing decisions' criteria and priorities enhances legitimacy and together easies the way in understanding and explaining why we are taking them.
EU tries to be very ambitious player - global actor. Of course, talking about military capabilities, we are overcome just by USA, but after answering questions "Why?" and "When?", we should think about "What?". What kind of response should be?
We don't need to start every time ESDP missions.
The participation could be shared with other actors. Both organizations, NATO and EU, are vital. However, EU and NATO after 10 years of ESDP still discuss their relations... Both organizations depend on states-members involvement, so cooperation on crisis management could be improved.
What NATO does, gives very good military base, and what we need perhaps is re-nationalization. "We are all small states." Cooperation is the one decision.
Fabio Liberti witnesses much more further. "We need to arrive at totally free defense market".
And the second good notice and together joke: "Imagine the Danish army coming from all missions..." Will we have another war or army conflict in Europe? No, but that's why EU needs strategy concerning security and defense questions.
In round table discussion, there was good observed by Sven Biscop that, of course, setting ESDP agenda will cause problems with some EU member states. Collective defense and looking at neighborhood are the main goals, which need to be achieved.
What made me lathing at the conference, was nice metaphor and providence, suggested by Nick Witney from European Council of Foreign Relations.
I have a dog and a cat. They could live together in my house. But if I come one morning into the kitchen and I see them cooperating in finding food and bla bla bla, I will think that something is not in the right way.
The same is with threats.
And the second making smile insight was from N. Witney personal experience. "I discovered that all European capitals think that they have particular important and exclusive relations with Washington."
But what the executive chief of Defense Agency in the European Council of Foreign Relations stresses very to the point, is an example of more than 30 thousand of European solders or blue-calms waiting in the Afganistan for the moment, when Obama will announce the strategy. At the moment waiting is worthless and useless.
But my personal thoughts after this conference are Do we really need that ESDP? Should every EU citizen support the program which is more orientated (practically) to somebody outside EU border?
Well I really see the future of civil forces concerning security points. As well as security includes economic security, social security and so on. But in the summary of the Proposal for White Paper of ESDP there is any word about this.
From my point of view, if we will count the costs of economic crisis and for example some armer conflict far far away from Europe... I guess the first will get the first prize of making the most harm for all community. But as it was said, EU tries to be an ambitious actor worldwide, but here I don't see the rational point.
And after noticing how much people complain about their living conditions at the moment, nowadays ESDP is just a deficit of democracy.
We have lots of problems inside EU. Domestic violence, terrorism, lack of energy resources, economic insecurity and for example relations with Russia's power (especially for north-east EU members) in EU decisions are the points which should be solved firstly. After that, there could be high time to think about how to take care of others far far away.
In conclusion, what I think this conference participants have forgotten, is that EU is still not a confederation, and a single unit. There are lots of different countries with diverse attitudes and, because all of them are democratic countries, their needs should not be forgotten.
Pranešimai
