Pesco, 23 The EU countries sign the notification document. What will be the next move?

(To Maria Enrica Rubino)
14/11/17

The notification document for the launch of the Structured and Permanent Cooperation (Pesco) was signed in Brussels by 23 EU foreign and defense ministers: the starting point towards an integrated common defense system.

"An historic day" was the hot comment by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini, and Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti. "After 60 years of waiting, in just a few months we have done more work and made more progress than we have done in all previous decades. We have reached an important milestone. "- commented Pinotti. "I'm very happy" - he added - "Because the path started with a letter four has had a very high level of membership, the vast majority of the EU nations have signed up to Pesco."

Countries that have signed the notification

In addition to Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. They are not going to join Great Britain and Malta, while Portugal and Ireland promise to join as soon as they complete the national approval process. As far as that is concerned, then, Denmark does not seem to have any interest in participating in the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) project,

However, the door will remain open to non-EU countries that may be involved in the participation of some projects (as Pinotti stated in the last hearing held at the Chamber of Deputies last November 8) if they will provide 'added value' , they will not have any political power in Pesco, which requires unanimous approval of decisions (excluding decisions on the suspension or inclusion of new members for which the vote will be by a qualified majority).

Pesco is structured in two parts: the Council Level and the Projects Level. Council Level is a sort of control body and will take care of policy evaluation, or rather ensure that all states fulfill their commitments. With regard to Project Level, the projects will provide an idea of ​​the effectiveness of Pesco, which will be managed by the Member States that are part of it.

One of the goals is to create a partnership on an industrial level, keeping intact the 'national sovereignty' of individual Member States. The paper illustrates the example of Belgian-Dutch co-operation involving the military navy of the two countries in the 1948.

Pesco is linked to the Coordinated Annual Review on Defense (CARD) and the European Defense Fund (EDF), currently under development with the European Defense Industrial Development Program. Both tools are useful for achieving the same political objective: CARD will be managed by the European Defense Agency through a constant monitoring of defense spending plans; the EDF will provide financial incentives to foster defense co-operation, from research to capacity development. Pesco will develop projects identified through the CARD system in the 'priority' areas.

As regards, then, the hypothesis of the birth of a 'single European army' put forward, or it would be better to say "risky" by some newspapers, it is good to clarify that the EU does not officially speak of a defense union, but of a 'military component'. "The aim is to jointly develop defense capabilities and make them available for EU military operations", it is specified. And then there are those who speak of structured and permanent cooperation as the attempt to create an alternative to NATO, which remains, to date, the most important military alliance in the West to which, in reality, the EU does not may offer an alternative. It is possible, however, to speak of "complementary tasks" to NATO: for example, the EU could be involved in military missions in Africa, an area in which NATO traditionally has no presence.

What will be the next move?

The next move will be the vote of the Council (CAE) on 11 December for the actual approval which will take place with a reinforced qualified majority (72% of the States representing at least 65% of the EU population). This is followed by the political endorsement of the European Council of 13 December and the start of the first Pesco projects by the end of 2017. When the Pesco is approved, each member country will have to submit its National Implementation Plan, in which they must be illustrated the ways in which it intends to comply with the 20 'Commitments', the obligations set out in the notification.

Common commitments

Article 2 of Protocol No. 10 establishes common commitments (20) that participating States will have to maintain with the subscription of the notification.

1. Increasing the defense budget, to reach the goals of the agreement;

2. Medium-term increase in defense investment spending to 20% of total defense spending (collective benchmark) with participation in defense projects in accordance with CDP and with the coordinated annual review (CARD);

3. Increase of joint and collaborative strategic defense capabilities projects. Such joint and collaborative projects should be supported through the European Defense Fund if requested;

4. Increase the share of defense and technology research expenditure to approach 2% of total defense spending (collective benchmark);

5. Establish a regular review of these commitments (with the objective of Council approval);

6. To play a substantial role in capacity building within the EU, within the CARD framework;

7. Commitment to supporting CARD by recognizing the voluntary nature of the review and the individual constraints of the participating Member States;

8. Commitment to the concretization of the European Defense Fund in multinational procurement with EU added value;

9. Commitment for the development of harmonized requirements for development projects agreed by the participating Member States;

10. Commitment to the joint use of existing capabilities in order to optimize available resources and improve their overall effectiveness;

11. Commitment to ensuring increased efforts in cyber defense cooperation, such as sharing information, training and operational support;

12. With regard to the availability and deployment of forces, Member States undertake to:

  • Make available formations, strategically deployable, for the deployment of the EU LoA, in addition to a potential deployment of EUBG. This commitment does not include a permanent force or stand by force;

  • Developing a solid instrument (such as a database) accessible only to participating Member States and the contributing countries to its implementation and having quick access to the facilities to facilitate and accelerate the program;

  • The objective of a fast political commitment at national level, possibly reviewing national decision-making procedures;

  • provide substantial support to the CSDP's means and capabilities, operations (eg EUFOR) and missions (eg EU training missions) with staff, materials, training, support to the exercise, infrastructure or otherwise - have been unanimously resolved without prejudice to any decision on contributions to CSDP operations and without prejudice to any constitutional constraints;

  • Contributing substantially to the EU BG with the confirmation of contributions at least four years in advance, with a stand-by period in line with the EU BG Concept, the obligation to conduct EU BG exercises for the BG EU package strength (framework country) and / or participate in these exercises (all EU Member States participating in the EU BG);

  • Simplifying and standardizing cross-border military transport in Europe to enable rapid deployment of military equipment and personnel;

13. As regards the interoperability of the forces, the participating Member States undertake to:

  • Develop the interoperability of their own forces through:

  • Commitment to agree on common evaluation and validation criteria for the EU BG package aligned with NATO standards while maintaining national certification;

  • commitment to agree common, technical and operational standards of the forces recognizing that they need to ensure interoperability with NATO;

  • Optimizing multinational structures: Participating Member States could commit themselves to join and play an active role in possible future structures involved in European external action in the military sector (EUROCORPS, EUROMARFOR, EUROGENDFOR, MCCE / Atares / SEOS).

14. The participating Member States will work for ambitious joint financing of military operations and military CSDP missions, beyond which will be defined as a common cost according to the Athena Council decision.

15. Contribute to overcoming the capacity shortfalls identified in the Capability Development Plan (CDP) and CARD. These capacity projects increase the strategic autonomy of Europe and strengthen the European Defense Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB);

16. Consider a European collaborative approach as a priority to bridge the capacity gap identified at national level;

17. Attend at least one PES project that develops or provides skills identified as strategically relevant by the Member States;

18. Commitment to the use of EDA as a European forum for developing common capabilities and considering OCCAR as the default program;

19. Ensure that all projects with reference to the capabilities of the Member States make the European defense industry more competitive through an appropriate industrial policy that avoids unnecessary overlaps;

20. Ensure that cooperation programs - which only benefit entities that demonstrate added value across the EU - and the acquisition strategies adopted by the participating Member States will have a positive impact on the EDTIB.