Article in: EuropaRot 20/2005 - Tobias Pflueger

In the European Security Strategy, which was voted in the year 2003 by the heads of state and government, it says: “In the case of the new threats, the first line of defence will often lie abroad.” On April 13, 2003, the European Parliament also held a debate on this strategy. The report, which was presented for vote by the European deputy Kuhne, approved of the ESS unconditionally.

The ESS is supposed to be binding for all EU countries. By way of the ESS, military policy is supposed to be aligned more and more to planning the preventive conduct of war. The Kuhne report, however, contains even more far-reaching steps of arms build-up in order to make the EU safe for a global military intervention capability that has resort to NATO capacities. The EU shall become – thus it could be heard in the debate – one of the first and foremost militarily based Global Players.

In order to emphasise their criticism, the left fraction therefore had conceived of a minority vote, submitted in the Foreign Affairs Committee by my colleagues Jaromír Kohlícek (CP of Bohemia and Moravia), Erik Meijir (Socialist Party of the Netherlands), Miguel Portas (Portugese Left Block) and Athanasios Pafilis (Communist Party of Greece) and myself. The report among other things emphasised the cooperation between EU and NATO, in particular as regards common armament efforts and the Berlin-plus agreement, in which the access of the EU to NATO capacities is regulated. On the other hand, it was no longer mentioned there, what dangers might arise from the closer cooperation between the EU and NATO for the status of the neutral member states. Also the obligation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy to the UN Charta is insufficiently clear. Thus one keeps, as in the EU Constitutional Treaty, the door open to strike – if necessary even without a UN mandate. A commitment to the UN Charta as a whole is missing. It is interesting, moreover, that according to the report, the threat analyses of ESS and US American national security with respect to global threats coincide with regard to global dangers.

It should not surprise that the dangers that emanate from the ESS and the fact that one commits to arming military intervention forces are completely played down. What costs will result from that for the European tax payers is not elaborated in any detail. Last but not least, one finds in the text hymns of praise on the EU Constitutional Treaty, needed to ensure the militarisation of the EU by treaty.

In the EU parliament, the decision for the Kuhne report, with 421 against 90 votes and 15 abstentions, was a clear result. It is alarming that only the left fraction (GUE/NGL) voted unanimously against the resolution. As for the rest, it was a matter of a very grand coalition of conservatives, social democrats, liberals and greens. Together with the overwhelming part of the nationalist fraction “Union for the Europe of Nations” (UEN), they pronounced themselves for a military strong Europe. The right-wing populist FPÖ deputy Mölzer demanded in the debate: “The assertion of Europe as a global power of peace requires a strong unified voice toward the outside and also the capacity to impose it militarily and from the security policy standpoint.” The referee Kuhne, therefore, emphasised one more time: “The European Union indeed needs a security strategy. Therefore, the committee has also, by a great majority, welcomed the document worked out before by Javier Solana and the support of the governments for this document and developed it further.” Quite openly, he said in his speech: “Yes, certainly, the EU as well wants to equip itself with military decision-making structures and military capabilities.” And he emphasised once more that there existed no contradictions between NATO and the EU in the military realm. ”However, a broad majority in the committee has endorsed the security strategy. It encompasses instruments, such as the situation centre, the civil military planning cell, the creation of battle groups or the defence agency. These are not alternatives to NATO – most member states of the European Union are at the same time member states of NATO -, but they create new options for the European Union, which it did not have up to now. Only in this way can it develop to a partner with equal rights, for instance with the United States on the other side of the Atlantic.” On behalf of the left fraction, my Italian colleague Vittorio Agnoletto, who is member of the EU parliament, has pointed to the fact that the report is “extremely troubling and dangerous.”

Angelika Beer of the German Greens on the contrary one more time demonstrated her military Euro-enthusiasm. In time for this year’s Easter marches, she complained about the criticism of the EU Constitutional Treaty by the peace movement with the beautiful headline: “The thesis of the militarisation of the EU is untenable.” In the debate, she demanded a clear road for new military interventions: “We as Europeans take new steps. We assume civil and military responsibility. The question will pose itself in the foreseeable future in Kosovo.” This way it should go according to the wishes of this absolutely grand coalition, step by step, piece by piece: one military mission after the other, one combat-type intervention after the other, so as to collect experiences for “real” interventions into battle. EU soldiers abroad, this is the order of the hour for the overwhelming majority in the EU parliament. The development in Germany in the 90s almost seems to serve as a blueprint for this pattern. In the light of this background, it is even more important to note that in the meantime more extra-parliamentary resistance shows itself all over the EU despite the attempts to carve in marble the EU Constitutional Treaty and the militarisation of the EU.

Translated by Carla Krüger