The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever)
My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on securing this debate to discuss the important topic of European defence capabilities. I would like to say how very pleased I am that the European Union Sub-Committee is taking such a close interest in defence capabilities. I very much welcome the analysis and recommendations provided in your report.
We have had a very well informed discussion, as one would expect from looking at the speakers’ list. I will start by saying a few words about the Government’s position on CSDP and defence capabilities before moving on to address some of the issues raised during the debate.
The need for European nations to work together to improve our defence capabilities has seldom been greater. If we are collectively to have the ability to shoulder our defence responsibilities, Europe must commit to developing, maintaining and making available those capabilities. That point has been well made by several speakers. The Government want to encourage European defence to make Europe a more effective provider of international security. The UK-France defence treaties are an instance of how we are doing our part. I am very glad that the committee approves of that, as my noble friend Lord Teverson points out. We hope that our example will encourage other partners to seek better value for money and improved capability through closer co-operation with each other. We must work together to enable Europeans to develop and maintain the range of capabilities that will allow sustained and successful operations overseas.
Let me be clear, NATO will continue to be the foundation of the UK’s defence policy, as it is for many of our European partners. As a defensive alliance, it guarantees our safety. As a political alliance, it offers a unique forum to discuss security threats with north American and European allies. As a military alliance, it enables us to fuse our defence capabilities together quickly in a crisis, as demonstrated in Libya last year.
Although NATO remains our multilateral alliance of choice for the UK, the EU’s common security and defence policy can play an important complementary role, focusing on preventing conflict, building stability and tackling crises. The EU is well placed to conduct this range of activity, through its assortment of capabilities. It has access to a wide range of tools: diplomatic, civilian, military and developmental. It can use its capabilities in places where NATO may not be able to act or chooses not to act. It can provide specialised intervention in complex environments where a more comprehensive civilian-military approach is required.
Although there are clearly improvements that can be made to CSDP effectiveness—I will touch on those in a moment—CSDP operations are delivering. For example, in the Balkans, the EU military operation in Bosnia and the civilian rule-of-law mission in Kosovo are supporting continued stability and, in so doing, ensuring that the significant progress made in recent years does not slip back to instability right on Europe’s doorstep. In the Horn of Africa, the EU is leading the efforts to tackle international piracy and training Somali national security forces to counter the al-Shabaab terrorism threats.
The real value lies not just in the individual missions but in the collective expertise and focus that the EU can place in the regions, including its EU Special Representative and development programmes, among others—the comprehensive approach. However, for CSDP tools to be truly effective, they need to be supported by real military capability and greater political will. Europe as a whole is not currently meeting its obligations to ensure self-sufficient, deployable capability.
Improving European defence capability is not just about the amount that individual countries spend. Indeed, with across-the-board cuts to defence budgets throughout Europe, it no longer can be. Our key challenge is not to spend more but spend more intelligently. The UK-France defence treaties of 2010 are a prime example of effective co-operation and collaboration. These treaties are not about weakening one country’s capability at the expense of another but about two of Europe’s most capable military forces working together to improve interoperability, allowing them to deploy together more effectively and at a lower cost. There are other good examples too, such as Nordic defence co-operation. I was very happy to go to Norway a couple of weeks ago, where I saw examples of this. These should be used by other European nations as clear examples of how nations can work together to improve capability that should and must be replicated by other member states in order to avoid overreliance on the United States.
Turning to other European nations, Germany in particular has the clear potential to be a major player in European defence. We have been working increasingly closely with it on bilateral defence issues. Our key message is that Germany must focus more on generating the political will and public support within which to deploy military resources more widely. However, this need to become a more active participant in European defence is one that applies to much of Europe. There is plenty of scope for getting more with less; the combined defence budgets of EU nations total nearly €200 billion. We can look at building on the relationships formed during the Afghanistan campaign—for example working closely with countries such as Denmark and Estonia. We wish to co-operate more closely with Italy. It is only through teamwork that we can fill the European defence investment gap.
As a case study of a UK priority, I would like to return in more detail to battle groups, which I know were a key part of the committee’s report. The battle group concept was a UK-France-led concept intended to provide the hard edge of the EU’s CSDP. Yet, despite a number of opportunities, such as in Chad and Haiti, they have never been deployed. Battle groups, as per the intention in the original concept, have the potential to be extremely useful in conjunction with other EU crisis-management tools, but this means member states need to be prepared to equip and deploy them. We are working closely with other nations to find ways to improve the utility, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of the EU battle group, including looking at potentially deploying its support capabilities in their own right, in support of other EU activity.
In the current financial crisis, we cannot simply spend more to improve European capability. We must spend better by finding improved ways of working together to get greater capacity from the resources that we have. Part of this means that member states should not unilaterally cut capability without considering the potential impact on European defence. Countries that spend less than 2% on defence need to review their levels of spending and work together more effectively and efficiently. Organisations such as the EDA may have a role to play in facilitating this, but the responsibility lies with individual nations.
European defence does not exist in a vacuum. Indeed, 21 nations are members of both the EU and NATO; if those nations improve their military capability, both organisations will benefit. It is vital that efforts are co-ordinated, complementary and not duplicative. I believe that the NATO and EU initiatives, smart defence and pooling and sharing are the key to establishing capability shortfalls and identifying ways ahead. This requires a strong defence industry within both the UK and Europe to respond to shifting demands and requirements as threats continue to evolve.
Operation Unified Protector in Libya demonstrated that there are capabilities that NATO can provide only through the United States. Difficulties generated by the Turkey-Cyprus dispute for EU-NATO must be resolved as they not only make collaboration difficult but may cause operational difficulty. It is vital that European nations work together to fill these capability gaps and overcome obstacles that prevent further collaboration.
I will do my best to address the various issues and questions raised. If I do not cover them all, I undertake to write to noble Lords. My noble friend Lord Teverson pointed out the problem that the EU and NATO cannot always work together constructively. There are some well known institutional blockages between the two organisations, but that should not stop us from looking for practical workarounds while these persist. Co-operation must be driven from the top down and the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, and Secretary General Rasmussen have both made good inroads to promote greater transparency and co-operation.
The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, pointed out the European capability gaps and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said that Europe needed to get its act together. The key reasons for the lack of deployability appear to be member states resources and a lack of political will to invest in making assets fit for deployment, a lack of investment in deployment capabilities such as strategic lift, a lack of responsiveness in keeping troops at too low a state of readiness, a lack of understanding of expeditionary military doctrine and concerns about putting troops in harms way, of which we are all aware. To resolve the problem, member states need to take more advantage of the opportunities and initiatives such as pooling and sharing can provide to better support more cost-effective force generation, which is a point that the review makes very well. They need to make use of initiatives such as the temporary arrangements of funding for strategic lift from common funding. We are expecting that as a result of the recent agreement on temporary expansion of strategic lift for battle groups we can start to see more member states committing to the battle group roster.
Encouraging member states to use participation with other member states in the battle group roster is a way to share relevant knowledge and expertise. For example, as a result of Sweden's participation in EU battle groups, its armed forces are more interoperable and in a better configuration both militarily and politically to contribute to a coalition of the willing. Outside of battle groups, pooling and sharing more generally should be used as an opportunity to share knowledge through joint training.
The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, mentioned that the Prime Minister's last speech on Afghanistan was on 4 July last year. The Defence Secretary and the Foreign Secretary make quarterly Statements on Afghanistan in the other place, which are repeated in this House. I have repeated a number of those Statements. I was comforted to hear the noble Lord’s comment that an American general had told him that the closer he gets to Afghanistan the more he feels that we are being successful. That was very comforting.
My noble friend Lord Palmer asked what we have achieved in Afghanistan. Although significant challenges remain, including making sure that the Afghan Government and the Afghan security forces can deliver what is required after we leave, progress continues to be made. NATO and Afghan forces continue to squeeze the remains of the insurgency, and the majority of the population lives in areas that are progressing well through the process of transition to full Afghan control. My noble friend Lord Wallace and I went to Afghanistan in February. It was the fourth time I have been to Afghanistan, and it was completely different and so much better than it was on previous occasions.
My noble friend also asked about cyber. My department is not the government lead for this topic, but we have a considerable stake in this arena. As well as working with our key partners, the US and Australia, the MoD is working increasingly closely with key NATO allies and EU partners to address cyberthreats. This has included a recent letter of intent signed between the UK and France. The United Kingdom is fully committed to cyberexercises that involve NATO and EU partners.
My noble friend and other noble Lords mentioned our membership of the EDA, an issue that came up yesterday when I did my best to point out some of the achievements of the EDA. The noble Lord, Lord Roper, pointed out that the EDA has not yet fulfilled its full potential. The future of the EDA is being considered by my department at the moment, and I am confident that we will come up with an answer very soon—yesterday I said in the late autumn—that noble Lords will be happy with. My noble friend Lady Garden and I will take back to the department the positive comments that were made today about the EDA, and I am sure it will have noted the conclusions that the committee has come to concerning the EDA.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out that whoever is elected in America will expect us to take on more responsibility in Europe. This point was also very well made by the noble Lord, Lord Radice. I listened very carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said about President Putin’s ambitions, which are a matter of some concern.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, pointed out that we should be taking much more of a lead on European defence. While NATO remains a central pillar of our collective security, we welcome the clear value the EU brings through its wide range of tools. The UK plays a central role in ensuring that the CSDP delivers where it matters most in successful operations and missions and through setting an example on capability development. In CSDP operations, we are, for example, particularly strong leaders in counterpiracy through our command of Operation Atalanta, and in the field of capability development, we are supportive of the EDA-facilitated air-to-air refuelling initiative.
My noble friend Lady Miller mentioned the Trident replacement. My right honourable friend Danny Alexander is chairing the review into alternative options.
The noble Lord, Lord Jay, as one would expect from a former distinguished ambassador to Paris, mentioned the British-French initiative. The UK and France must work together to lead on defence in Europe as we are the only two nations that have the willingness and capability to engage on the world stage. Others who wish to be involved in the bilateral engagement must add value and must not be allowed to reduce the speed and effectiveness of our engagement, but we would welcome their positive input.
The noble Lord also asked about Mali. The UK supports the proposals for EU engagement in Mali. A well designed CSDP mission could strengthen the democratic institutions and help rebuild the capacity of the Malian armed forces to restore security to their country. The UK is conscious that any plan to launch a separate mission in Mali should be properly co-ordinated with the EUCAP Niger mission to ensure that there is a coherent and complementary strategy for the Sahel. The UK has appointed a Sahel special representative who took up the post on 15 October.
The noble Lord asked about BAE Systems and I rather rashly answered the question. I got a bit of a googly yesterday about BAE Systems, which does not have an awful lot to do with the EDA. I hope that the failure of merger talks will not be viewed as a lost opportunity for the European defence and aerospace industry. Balancing national interest between the three nations and the commercial interests between the two companies was always going to be difficult. The French and UK positions converged during the talks, and the Secretary of State and his French equivalent certainly were in regular contact. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about ministerial support for BAE Systems. That is just continuing what I have always done. As Defence Ministers, we will do our very best to support the British defence industry, which employs tens of thousands of people. I am sure we are continuing what the noble Lord’s Government did.
The noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, had reservations about the European appetite to get stuck in. While there are examples of this, we must give praise where praise is due and, among others, I draw attention to the incredible support that the Danes and the Estonians give our troops in Afghanistan. My noble friend saw a lot of examples of that. Our troops think the world of the Danes and the Estonians, and they have saved a lot of our lives.
I am conscious that I am running out of time but, finally, the noble Lord, Lord Roper, asked about the balance of competences review. Although the Ministry of Defence is not leading on any of the balance of competences reports, my officials are working closely with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and other departments, such as the Cabinet Office, BIS and the Department of Health to ensure that defence interests are represented fully. We expect to feed heavily into the foreign policy report, especially with regard to the CSDP and the internal market report in the first semester.
Again, I thank the committee for the report and today’s debate. We have seen areas where European defence has been successful, and areas where we still have progress to make. There is an increasing urgency for Europeans to step up and deliver defence capabilities. The UK-French model will, I hope, encourage this. No one expects all nation states to contribute equally, but they must contribute fairly. The burden of additional investment and capability can be shared effectively and easily. Just as Europe cannot afford a fiscal deficit, neither can it afford a security deficit.