A third way for EU defence

Date: 01/12/05

As the EU and the Ukraine meet for their summit today (1 December), all eyes will be on the issue of potential membership. That is a pity since the closer relationship between the two has already apparently resulted in an outcome worthy of comment: an EU monitoring mission in Transdniestria - a frozen conflict from the end of the Cold War - agreed on by both the Ukraine and Moldova.

It used to be that when conflicts were either erupting or else trying to come to an end there were only two clear international options: NATO or the UN. Between the two there was the occasional single or multi-state initiative that received international backing, but on the whole the options were pretty extreme: NATO with mass force, including often US troops and equipment, but with little civilian or broader political capabilities; or a UN mission with any number of troops from around the globe, though never from the US, mostly with few military capabilities - and often with a large civilian contingent trying to apply the rather vague mandates handed down by the Security Council.

NATO and the UN are still in business, but in the past year they have found that a new option is now also in the running: the EU. With missions in Aceh, Gaza and now also Transdniestria the Union has started to carve out a distinct niche for itself and the world - a "third way" in international affairs.

On the whole these are small, well- defined missions that, rather than take on entire negotiations or settlements, address a specific issue within an agreement between two sides - such as the monitoring of the Rafah border passage between Gaza and Egypt, for example.

To a large extent the nature of these missions has been dictated by pragmatism, since the EU has yet to develop the mechanisms for mounting broader missions from scratch - the more extensive EUFOR and EUPM in Bosnia and Herzegovina being continuing missions taken over from NATO on the military side and the UN on the policing side. On the other hand, it is the precise and limited nature of these missions that give them distinction, and have helped to establish the EU in this field.

Both the precision and the scope are usually arrived at by hard and specific political debate between member states, with the European Commission and within the Council of Ministers. Only when these internal negotiations have been completed is an EU

mission authorised - and whilst they tend to whittle away grander ambitions, they do deliver that most elusive of international components: political backing.

NATO and the UN also undertake internal negotiations before they intervene in any situation, but these can be fractious and often unsatisfying, leading to missions doomed from the start. Worse, still, since they precede much larger missions, the political failure is magnified. For example, while NATO can claim a mission of sorts in training Iraqi military, the alliance has yet to recover from its far from friendly negotiations on the matter last year, on which in effect there is still no consensus and only part of the member states are involved in the endeavour. The UN has become notorious for mounting missions lacking political coherence, since various member states or blocs will often oppose meaningful action for any number of reasons - the mission to Bosnia throughout the war (1992-95) being a classic and awful example.

Many of the member states of the EU are part of NATO and the decision-making mechanisms of the UN. As such they should be aware more than others of the severe shortcomings of missions without political will. Because of this they should glory in the EU so far avoiding this fate - and work hard at keeping it thus. For a change, the world could do with a third way that delivers on its promise.

• Ilana Bet-El is an academic, author and policy adviser based in Brussels.

Commentary feature in which the author looks at the European Union's security and defence operations presenting them as a viable alternative to operations under the leadership of the United Nations or NATO.