Defence Capabilities: EUC Report

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I listened to my noble friend Lord Gilbert with interest since his contributions are always enjoyable. I have been called a fanatic before, but not, I think, a Eurofanatic. That is the first time.

[Lord Gilbert]

I assure my noble friend that I was not referring to him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rosser]

I think the noble Lord’s reference was to the Eurofanatics on this side, so I took it as including me. At the risk of reinforcing my noble friend in his view, I would like to express appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the European Union Committee for this comprehensive and measured report. As the summary states, the shift in the economic and political balance away from the United States and western Europe towards Asia, the revision in US defence thinking and the economic crisis have created a new situation to which the European Union and its member states need to respond.

It is through our global alliances that we can remain a powerful and significant force in the world. We have a unique diplomatic reach through our membership of the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the United Nations and, indeed, the Commonwealth. Maximising our role within these institutions through greater co-operation and collaboration will surely be the principal means by which we can remain a lead influence on international trends and world events. Our international partnerships are the principal source of strength in our defence posture.

The threats that we face today, from terrorism to climate change, nuclear proliferation to cyberattack, are shared, and shared operations to combat them are increasingly commonplace. European nations have worked together in the Balkans, Chad, Afghanistan and around the world in European Union, United Nations and NATO missions. We share objectives and standards, priorities and interests. We involve ourselves in joint missions and operations overseas based on mutual support and shared interests in order to protect each of our domestic borders. Our futures are linked, so the action we take to enhance and shape them should be collective.

To say that we need to deepen European defence co-operation is not a change in philosophy, but rather a logical step to ensure that European nations can each maintain a strong defence policy which allows intervention to protect and promote our interests and values. In the same way, during conflict, we must better co-operate in preparation for and prevention of such conflicts, based on a pragmatic approach which reflects the world we live in.

Greater European co-operation in defence procurement is crucial, enabling us to maximise our ability to project force and to do so cost-effectively, supporting both the front line and the bottom line. It is vital that a more efficient defence industry and better value defence products are promoted, distortions in the market are regulated out and defence companies and their supply chains are supported. That means limiting the fragmentation which arises from differing national procurement regulations, reducing the number of national equipment programmes and ironing out the delays which arise from individual export authorisations. There has been progress on this in recent years. The European Defence Agency code of conduct on procurement competition, the directive on defence procurement limiting individual export licences and the EDA’s limits placed on offsets all work in favour of a strong European industrial base.

The merger between BAE Systems and EADS has been prominent recently. We supported the proposal in principle, but we accept from a UK point of view why it could not go ahead,; however, BAE Systems needs to get into new and different markets as the UK and USA markets contract. It would be helpful if the Minister could say what the Government are doing to help BAE Systems retain a sustainable base in the UK in the light of recent developments. Yesterday, the Minister said that Ministers in the Ministry of Defence were doing their best to help BAE Systems sell its products. Is that some new initiative, or simply a continuation of what was happening prior to the possible merger between BAE Systems and EADS falling through?

Co-operation over procurement is the only way Europe can compete in a very expensive and technologically driven activity and it must learn to do this better together or have no other option than continually buy from the United States. We should look first at where we can co-operate further with those with whom we have existing successful partnerships, including, of course, France.

The economic crisis has ushered in competing sentiments. On the one hand, countries need to shrink budgets and are actively seeking savings, which can come from economies of scale but, on the other hand, their protective and protectionist instincts are stronger. We must surely fight the latter and address practices that hinder legitimate access to markets. We must protect national discretion, but strong national export markets will be bolstered, not limited, by European co-operation, and that is surely the shared challenge.

As well as co-operation on procurement, there is a need to better integrate force structures. This takes place but perhaps not to the extent that the real potential for front-line benefits is maximised. Arrangements to pool maintenance, training, education infrastructure and skills on a bilateral or multilateral basis should be explored. Research and development facilities and work streams could be pooled to develop specialisations together. The resultant economies of scale should be used to directly fund training and equipment programmes and to contribute to balancing domestic defence budgets.

The UK-France defence treaty is a very welcome development. It commits to limited interoperability, joint purchasing and sharing of expertise and facilities. It has the potential to build the trust essential for successful partnerships to work and lays the basis for further collaboration between ourselves and France in future. It is characterised by perhaps the most important trait: namely, seriousness of intent. This should not be an isolated achievement. I hope that similar agreements will emerge. Procurement, research and technology spending, maritime surveillance, energy security and combating piracy are all areas that should be looked at in this regard.

The UK-France treaty is surely a model that can lay the foundations for a landscape of European co-operation based on distinct, sometimes regional co-operations. Where countries can do so and where it is in their mutual interests, they should work together. That is certainly not about creating the basis for a “Euro army”, but pursuing gains where they can be found on a case-by-case basis, and making the pursuit of those gains the rule rather than the exception. The steps taken by Nordic countries and the Czech Republic and Slovakia in this direction are to be welcomed. This approach must be balanced, however, with protecting national operational independence and the right for countries to retain the ability to defend themselves without NATO or the European Union.

The success of greater co-operation depends on Europe’s ability and willingness to contribute to tackling international security threats. Europe must decide if it is serious. All European member-state Governments have to be open with each other and about their capacity within NATO. In aggregate, the EU member states, many of which are also members of NATO, have half a million more men and women in uniform than the Americans. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, they can deploy only a fraction of the capabilities of the United States. Among all the talk of coalitions of the willing, the act of creating a coalition of the capable may in the future be a bigger challenge. The present situation hardly appears to be sustainable if Europe wants to prevent the power shift eastwards, to which a number of your Lordships have already referred, from leaving it behind.

The former US Secretary for Defence, Robert Gates, was surely right when he said that Europe cannot rely on others to share the burden of our own security. We must reform or see our own influence wane. As and when the economic situation improves, other nations across Europe should at the very least meet their NATO requirements, which the majority fail to do.

The issue that is well covered in the EU Committee report is about attitude and collective resolve within Europe to retain influence. It is fine that the nations of NATO and the EU share values and goals, but to be truly meaningful, these need to be acted on when threatened. Although the benefits of our alliance are shared by all, too often the contribution to military operations when tested is, as we saw in Libya, unbalanced, as the report points out. In spending and resolve, there must be more equal contributions from within Europe. In Europe, our mutual dependence is a fact, but in too many cases, the embrace of it across Europe is yet to be. Strengthening mutual positions demands greater collaboration and co-operation financially, systematically in procurement, and militarily to boost combat capability. When Europe’s values and interests face a serious test, European countries need to ensure that they can and do act collectively to the very best of their respective abilities. Frankly, one could not say that that is always the case at present.