The European Union: Going military

Date: 05/04/03

Is the EU's modest force in Macedonia a harbinger of bigger things to come?

THE European Union has turned into a military power - of a sort. On March 31st the EU launched its first military mission, when it took over from a NATO-led peacekeeping force in Macedonia. Javier Solana, the EU's foreign-policy chief, and George Robertson, NATO's secretary-general, were both on hand to welcome this “new era for European security”.

The political symbolism of the Macedonian mission is more compelling than its military clout. There will be 320-plus troops on peacekeeping duty, based in Skopje, the Macedonian capital, with - initially - a German admiral in overall command and a French general in operational control. But from the EU's point of view the important thing is less what the soldiers are doing or who commands them than the fact that they will be wearing the Union's badge, 12 yellow stars on a blue background, on their uniforms.

For years, the EU has had to put up with jibes that it is an “economic giant and a political dwarf”. For a decade, however, it has been trying to develop a common foreign and security policy. In recent years this has concentrated on efforts to develop some sort of military muscle. EU leaders have pledged to develop a 60,000-strong rapid-reaction force, which would draw upon the armies of EU countries. Senior military men have been seconded to the EU and have been twiddling their thumbs in their very own “situation room”. Now, at last, they have a situation to deal with.

An uprising by ethnic-Albanian rebels in Macedonia linked to militias based across the border in Kosovo, also populated by ethnic Albanians, brought Macedonia close to civil war in 2001. A peace deal was negotiated by EU diplomats, with NATO providing peacekeepers to patrol “crisis areas”. One of the attractions for the EU of taking over now is that the situation seems quiet and under control, so offering an uncontroversial debut for its new military arm. The hope is that if things go well in Macedonia, the EU will be able to take over the much larger NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, where 12,000 troops are on duty.

There is cause, however, for scepticism about the EU's assumption that the Macedonian problem is really under control. The country is still subject to a seemingly endless cycle of private vendettas and politically-related killings, and plagued by smuggling rings and rebel armies, many of whose members are dedicated to the rise of a Greater Albania.

NATO's force in Macedonia has, in fact, done little to tackle these problems. Its troops have specialised in symbolic patrols, with much waving at children and throwing them sweets. The EU is expected to adopt a similar modus operandi. Its autonomy from NATO is, in any event, fairly limited. The EU force is using NATO plans and equipment - and NATO promises to take over again, if things get nasty.

Is the European Union's modest force in Macedonia a harbinger of bigger things to come?

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