Global "policing" role for the EU
01 June 2000
The Amsterdam Treaty allowed for the integration of the Western European Union (WEU) military alliance into the EU and the development of the European Security and Defence Plan (ESDP). The Treaty came into effect on I May 1999 and by the end of the year the EU had agreed to create a 50,000-60,000 rapid reaction military force. In September the Secretary-General of NATO, Mr Solana was not only appointed as the EU's High Representative for common foreign and security policy (CSFP) but also given the job of running the Council of the European Union (the institution working for the 15 EU governments) as its Secretary-General. In November he was appointed as the Secretary-General of the WEU as well.
At the Helsinki Council in December 1999 the EU governments agreed that not only was it to have an independent military capacity but that it should also create, as an adjunct to military policy, a "non-military crisis management" role as well.
A EU "crisis management" capacity developed out of its humanitarian role (ECHO) would have been a civilian, rather than a military initiative. But the "non-military crisis management" role which has been adopted threatens to "contaminate" not just the EU's policy on access to documents (see feature in this issue) but also justice and home affairs and the role of (paramilitary) policing at national, EU and international level.
From Amsterdam to Solana
Until the Amsterdam Treaty was agreed by the EU governments in June 1997 the EU was a purely civilian organisation. However, the revised Treaty on European Union Title V (CSFP) says that for the defence of the "security of the Union" Member States shall support policies and practices "unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity" (Article 1).
Article 17.1 says that the "Union" shall "foster" closer relations with the WEU with a view to the possibility of the integration of the WEU into the Union". Only 11 of the 15 EU members states are in NATO - Austria, Finland, Sweden and Ireland are outside - and Denmark, while in NATO, is not a member of the WEU. Under the "Luxembourg Declaration" agreed by the WEU Council of Ministers in November 1999 the WEU has: "been de facto integrated into the European Union" (BASIC Briefing). The "Declaration" says:
"Ministers expressed their willingness to allow bodies of the Council of the European Union direct access, as required, to the expertise of the Organisation's operational structures, including the WEU Secretariat, the Military Staff, the Satellite Centre and the Institute for Security Studies... [and| stressed the importance of civil-military cooperation in the context of crisis management missions."
While the Amsterdam Treaty makes no mention of "nonmilitary crisis management" is does refer in Article 17.2 to "humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking." The Commission describes this development as: "The so-called Petersberg tasks (de: humanitarian and rescue task, peacekeeping and crisis management including peacemaking)".
The current initiative covering "non-military crisis management" is, however, being justified under a very general power in Article 12 indent five TEU which allows the: "strengthening systematic cooperation between Member States in the conduct of policy."
Helsinki, December 1999
At the Helsinki European Council (Summit) in December 1999 EU governments agreed that:
"the Union [should] have an autonomous capacity to take decisions and, where NATO as a whole is not engaged, to launch and then conduct EU-led military operations in response to international crises.. the Union will [also] improve and make more effective use of resources in civilian crisis management..."
The Helsinki EU Council adopted a report on: "Non-military crisis management" with an "Action Plan" which says the EU, in non-military crises, must strengthen "national, collective and