Solana’s toughest mission is making Europe a trueforce to be reckoned with

Date: 05/10/00

Over the next seven weeks, Javier Solana faces his biggest test since being appointed as the EU's foreign policy chief as he strives to equip the Union with the means to realise its military ambitions. As he stressed at the first meeting between the EU's interim political and security committee and NATO ambassadors last month: "All our efforts on structures and procedures mean nothing if we do not put rapidly in place deployable and sustainable crisis management forces."

Union governments are aiming to set out how they intend to assemble a rapid reaction force of 60,000 troops to be deployed by 2003, at a 'pledging' conference on 20 November. That force should be able to stay in action for up to a year - around 200,000 troops will be required because of the need to rotate them - and will be capable of carrying out operations 4,000 kilometres from the EU's borders.

But military experts are starting to express concern about whether the Union will be able to meet its self-imposed target. Despite French Defence Minister Alain Richard's confident claim that raising as many as 80,000 troops would be within the EU's capabilities, doubts are growing that the task will be as easy as Richard maintains.

One NATO official explained that the alliance faced problems over the type of personnel when member countries were asked to contribute to joint forces. "Nations are happy to put forward their infantry soldiers but they are less happy to put forward expensive and scarce resources which may be needed elsewhere," he said.

The problem of getting the right sort of troops comes on top of other well-known shortcomings in military equipment which the Union has to address. The three "holes", as Solana calls them, in the EU's military tool box are 'strategic lift' or long-range transport aircraft, long-distance communications and intelligence gathering.

Union governments were painfully reminded of their reliance on US equipment during the Kosovo campaign. Although NATO is prepared to allow the Union to borrow its assets for operations which the EU wants to lead itself, European countries still need to acquire their own in case NATO equipment is tied up elsewhere.

But away from the haggling over assault craft and field telephones, Solana and Patten face an equally demanding challenge to ensure that the civilian side of crisis management is up and running in parallel with the military wing. Diplomats stress that using military force will always be the last resort, despite the emphasis on developing that aspect of the Union's security policy.

Together with the military headline goals, EU member states have pledged to provide 5,000 civilian personnel to carry out a range of essential tasks when countries face collapse, such as policing and general administrative jobs. "It is impossible to separate purely military matters from related issues," said Patten in June, arguing that the Union might need to be "bankrolling police support to help head off a conflict or arranging the training of border services where uncontrolled mass migration is generating conflict".

The massive effort needed to help prevent situations developing into crises will be at least as important as having the troops and aircraft ready to be deployed if those efforts fail.