Bolstering Europe’s defence

EU leaders agreed in Thessaloniki, two and a half years ago, to establish the European Defence Agency (EDA), in an attempt to improve the EU’s defence capabilities.

According to Nick Witney, the agency’s chief executive, it has today established itself "psychologically" and in the last six months the agency has started to deliver.

Using suitably military terminology Witney explains that although the agency became ‘operational’ at the end of 2005, the first months were spent building a physical and political presence in Brussels.

"The European Defence Agency is part of the defence landscape now and I think it is pretty widely understood and recognised as a new actor," he says.

The EDA sits on the borders of two very well defended territories. Its work involves defence research, procurement and policy, which are usually the jealously guarded and secretive domains of national defence ministries. In its efforts to cut duplication of military spending, it also risks stepping on the toes of the defence industry, which is often shielded from competition by favourable regulation and close ties with national governments.

Witney and the agency have in the last two years made the first tentative steps toward promoting greater co-operation between member states.

Witney is satisfied with progress to date: "If I could go back to where we were two years ago and someone said ‘by the end of 2006 you may have done this that and the other, would you settle for that?’ I would have said yes."

One sign of the EDA’s impact is that Austria has consulted the agency as it prepares to reorganise its ministry of defence, to ensure its compatibility.

On the practical details of defence co-operation, the agency has made some modest steps forward.

It launched a voluntary code of conduct on defence procurement, its first joint research and technology programme - focusing on force protection - and published a well-received ‘long-term vision’ on issues that will affect defence capabilities in the future. The "cherry on the cake", according to Witney was a recent agreement by five member states, the European Commission and the Council of Ministers to work on software-defined radio, a developing communications technology.

But the EDA may find its work a little more difficult now that it is on its feet.

As one observer noted, the EDA has so far glided through air pockets of low resistance. In its attempt to negotiate a more demanding course in the coming years it will face some headwinds.

It might be indicative of things to come that France and the UK have clashed over how much the agency is doing. France would like to see ‘more EDA’, but the UK’s Ministry of Defence has been cautious.

Despite having Witney, its former chief of international security, in charge, the UK opted out of research on force protection and in November vetoed the agency’s three-year budget, ostensibly because €1 million was not accounted for adequately.

The underlying reason was British suspicion that a trend was being set for the agency doing more and more of its own spending. Michele Alliot-Marie, France’s defence minister, described the UK position as "a bit of a joke".

Against this backdrop, the agency will have the major task for the coming year of creating a ‘capability development plan’, which will highlight what steps the EU needs to take to meet the demands of future EU missions.

It is a project that is likely to touch on all the political sensibilities that surround the agency’s work.

But Witney is optimistic: "It should help defence planners across Europe to converge ideas on what is the right way to spend our money and what is the wrong way.

"It will, I hope, involve closer engagement of some of the military staffs than we have achieved up until this point."

But with what is becoming customary caution, he adds: "We are still new, and we are an additional and somewhat unfamiliar addition to thinking on defence within European ministries."

EU leaders agreed in Thessaloniki, two and a half years ago, to establish the European Defence Agency (EDA), in an attempt to improve the EU’s defence capabilities.