Solana upbeat on EU defence

Date: 04/05/2000

By Simon Taylor

UNION foreign policy chief Javier Solana claims governments are making spectacular progress in creating the new security and defence policy.

"In EU terms, it is moving at the speed of light," he said in an interview with European Voice, pointing out that Union leaders only took the decision to launch the initiative last December and yet the interim bodies had already been set up and the EU was making headway in discussions on its future relationship with third countries and NATO.

The former NATO secretary-general described the recent softening in France's stance over relations with the transatlantic alliance as a "very important development". He said that the Anglo-French plan for future ties had been taken up by the Portuguese presidency and would be discussed at this weekend's informal meeting of Union foreign ministers, together with the question of links with the six NATO countries which are not EU member states.

Solana also predicted that the drive to give the Union its own military capability would result in better coordination of defence spending in the bloc. "The success of European security and defence policy will depend on defence industry consolidation and vice versa," he said. "There are two lines which move in parallel."

He dismissed suggestions that pressure on EU governments to cut defence budgets would jeopardise attempts to set up a rapid reaction force of 60,000 troops by 2003. "European countries are going through a reform of their armed forces because we have to prepare for the challenges of today

and tomorrow. These transformations may require additional money, but in some cases it could be done through restructuring," he argued.

Solana insisted that Europe's armed forces needed to be more flexible and mobile. "Our concerns about security are related to deploying and projecting forces like the case of Bosnia and Kosovo," he said. He also implicitly rejected calls by the French and Italian governments to set country-specific targets for a fixed percentage of public spending on defence. "I do not know if the mechanism of defence convergence criteria in the sense of a fraction is the most effective since budget planning for defence is not counted in the same manner in every country," he said. "It is better to have headline goals and commit everyone to meeting those goals."

In a robust defence of the Union's policy towards Serbia, Solana argued that the Union was helping opposition groups in their struggle to loosen President Slobodan Milosevic's grip on power.

He rejected suggestions that there were parallels with the situation in Iraq after the Gulf war, when western powers urged pro-democracy groups to oust their dictatorial ruler but did little to help them. "None of the examples is like Serbia because Serbia is in the centre of the Balkans, surrounded by democratic countries who are all evolving in a very rapid manner towards the behaviour of European countries," he argued.

Solana claimed that the EU's twin-track approach of hurting the Milosevic regime with sanctions while forging better links with independent media and academics in Serbian society would bear fruit soon. "We have to help democratic forces and civil society to be able to profit as soon as change takes place. But there is no doubt. It will happen," he insisted.

Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, claims governments are making spectacular progress in creating the new security and defence policy.