EU Defence: Permanent Structured Co-operation

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I will outline the procedure in a European Committee. First, a member of the European Scrutiny Committee may make a statement, for no more than five minutes, on that Committee’s decision to refer the documents for debate. The Minister will then make a statement for up to 10 minutes. Members of this Committee may not make interventions during either statement. Questions to the Minister will follow. The total time for the Minister’s statement and the subsequent question-and-answer session is up to one hour. The Minister will then move the motion and a debate will take place. We must conclude our proceedings by 2 pm. Does a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wish to make a statement?

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and to introduce the debate. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has repeatedly said, our exit from the European Union does not have to change the UK’s commitment to the defence and security of the European continent. We will still have advanced military capabilities, and NATO membership remains a crucial element of our foreign policy. However, Brexit will necessarily have an impact on the way we approach defence co-operation with the EU27. We are leaving the EU’s common foreign and security policy and, with it, the European Defence Agency and other EU structures aimed at a more coherent approach to defence by the EU’s member states.

The most significant development in defence co-operation among EU countries has been the recent launch of permanent structured co-operation. PESCO is a voluntary mechanism under which 25 member states have agreed to make mutual commitments to increase their defence spending and improve their military capabilities through 17 different projects. Those commitments, which have political force but are not legally binding, range from facilitating transport of troops and matériel across national borders to training centres for military personnel. The list of projects will be updated each year in November and may even include major joint armaments acquisitions in the future.

The EU is also in the process of establishing a European defence fund. Financed by the EU budget, it will fund research and development in respect of military technology and provide a favourable co-financing rate for PESCO projects with an industrial component.

The UK, alongside Malta and Denmark, has not joined PESCO. However, the European Scrutiny Committee considered the launch of PESCO to be of major political importance, as it is an important step in the development of the EU’s post-Brexit approach to defence matters. Moreover, the Government have been clear that they want to be able to participate, at their own request, in specific PESCO projects where they consider that a particular workstream would benefit the UK or its defence industry. Notable in that regard is an initial project to facilitate military mobility within the EU by removing customs barriers and improving dual-use transport infrastructure. Decisions on the arrangements for third-country participation in PESCO and on the restrictions on European defence fund funding for British companies after Brexit are expected by the end of this year.

The other EU development that we are here to consider is the establishment of a new military planning and conduct capability unit. The MPCC, established last June, created centralised command of the EU’s existing and future non-executive—that is, advisory—military missions for the first time. The MPCC will be the permanent out-of-area command and control structure at military strategic level for such missions. It will be responsible for the operational planning and conduct of non-executive missions, including the building up, launching, sustaining and recovery of EU forces. At present, the MPCC oversees only EU training missions in Somalia, the Central African Republic and Mali; they employ a small number of UK secondees. The MPCC, which the Government could have vetoed but did not, is under the control of the Political and Security Committee, on which only EU member states are represented.

The European Scrutiny Committee has recently published a number of reports on these developments in EU defence co-operation. Given the impact that unified EU-level defence structures such as PESCO and the MPCC could have for UK foreign policy priorities, including the primary role of NATO, we believe that they deserve wider consideration by the House. PESCO could be seen as a first step towards the common European defence foreseen by the Lisbon treaty. Similarly, the MPCC could be extended to executive EU military operations at a later stage and it is possible that it could even form the basis for a future EU operational headquarters. The implications of such a development would deserve very careful consideration.

As regards the future of the common security and defence policy more generally, the UK’s withdrawal from the EU means that the Government will soon lose the institutional representation that allows it to influence and—where necessary—block the strategic direction of EU defence policy. Nevertheless, the Government will clearly retain a strong interest in the EU’s activities in this area. That is shown by not only the Government’s interest in participating in PESCO but in their offer to make ad hoc contributions to specific EU military missions after Brexit, the participation by the UK defence industry in projects that will be funded from the EU’s new defence fund, and the importance of continued UK access to the military applications of the Galileo satellite navigation project.

The EU27 have repeatedly recognised the need for continued co-operation on security matters, given the UK’s substantial military capability, and negotiations on a new treaty on security co-operation are likely to start soon—

[The Chair]

Order. That is a very good point for me to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, who has run over time. I call the Minister to make the opening statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Lancaster]

I can certainly confirm that it is our intention not to lead this battle group in the second half of 2019, which is after the point of our departure from the European Union. That is a perfectly pragmatic decision from military planning, because it can take some time with most countries’ rosters to prepare the appropriate battle group and be ready. An early announcement from us has simply enabled our European partners to fill that.

Equally, we must remember that we are currently involved in several EU missions, and the EU has made it clear that, after 29 March, the UK will no longer command any of those missions. That is their decision, not ours. It has an impact, for example, on Operation Atalanta, which is currently operating out of Northwood. We stand ready to ensure continuity and to do our bit until 29 March, but it is an issue for the EU. I am assured that it will take 40 weeks to move that headquarters, so the EU now has, by my own calculation, a matter of weeks to decide who will take over if we are stop running that headquarters on 29 March. Such decisions, however, are being made, effectively, by the EU.

[Mr Fysh]

I have a question for the Minister about the military mobility project, and what it means in practical terms. My understanding is that one of the key adjuncts to the project is having an adequate arrangement on customs and regulatory matters for the movement of assets. Will the Minister say a little more about which regulations and customs procedures are relevant in that context?

[Mark Lancaster]

I am sure I will be able to go into the detail of those regulations in my wind-up speech after the debate. On the military imperative, obviously we are members of NATO, but when it comes to land force reinforcement capability, that infrastructure across Europe is incredibly important. During the cold war, it was a highly honed system. I remember as a Royal Engineer every bridge in Germany having a clear military weight limit on it. It is about trying to re-establish that communication network to ensure that, if we have to reinforce militarily across Europe, that system is in place. The regulatory framework is slightly above my pay grade, but I hope to be able to give clarity on it shortly.

[Mark Lancaster]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and in many ways he highlights some of the challenges that need to be addressed through negotiation. That is precisely why we are going through the negotiation period, but I go back to my starting point, which is that I believe there is a genuine will and acceptance that it is in everybody’s collective interest to continue the relationship we have had broadly in collaboration with our European partners. That is the very nature of how we worked before.

Where I do find some encouragement from both the EDA and the EDF is that there is an acceptance in the whole basis of those institutions that only by working collaboratively—I have already said twice that we are the biggest contributor to R&D in Europe—can we get the best when it comes to aligning our interests on European security. I remain confident that the issues that the hon. Gentleman raises will be resolved as we move forward.

[Mr Fysh]

On the point about helicopters, is the Minister aware that my constituency has an input into both of the Government’s desired streams when it comes to co-operation with the European Union? We have just seen Army Air Corps Wildcats deployed in Estonia from RNAS Yeovilton. One of the first projects in this new European defence funding world is an unmanned vehicle co-ordination project. Leonardo in Italy is involved in the co-ordination of the software around that, and the factory in Yeovil for Leonardo is very much involved in the units that might be able to be used in that in future. Does he think that that is an example of how we might work with our European friends?

[Mark Lancaster]

Potentially, yes.