After the crisis in Afghanistan, the EU Defense Minister discussed on Thursday (September 2) the proposal to establish a rapid reaction force and the possibility of temporary military cooperation among interested EU member states. But not everyone is on board.
After the chaotic scenes at Kabul Airport after the Taliban seized power, the European Union once again called for the development of a European rapid reaction force, the group’s own joint military capabilities, to quickly respond to the crisis.
Although a battle group system consisting of 1,500 soldiers was created in 2007, these systems have never been used due to funding problems and unwillingness to deploy. However, these plans were originally proposed more than two decades ago, but they have been stuck. deadlock.
“Afghanistan has shown that defects are rewarded. (…) Sometimes there are events that catalyze history and create breakthroughs. I think Afghanistan is one of them,” EU Foreign Policy Director Joseph Borel said in Slovenia. He added that he hopes that the October or November meeting will produce a concrete plan.
Borel and EU military chief Claudio Graziano spoke to reporters before the informal meeting, urging member states to reconsider establishing a rapidly deployable military force to intervene worldwide.
They said that establishing a “first force” of 5,000 soldiers is the way forward, reducing dependence on the United States.
“The situation in Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Sahel indicates that now is the time to take action. The first is to establish a European rapid reaction force that can demonstrate the EU’s willingness as a global strategic partner,” Graziano Chairman of the EU Military Commission Speaking to reporters in the morning.
“When, if not now?” he asked.
EU diplomats said they hope to reach a final agreement on the design and funding by March. France took over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union in January.
Earlier this year, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as some smaller member states, launched a campaign for this idea in a position paper.
With the exception of Slovenia and the Czech Republic, Eastern European countries did not appear on the list of signatories.
An Eastern European diplomat told EURACTIV: “We have always been skeptical of the rapid reaction force because it is not yet clear what the added value of the battle group is.”
“So far, we mainly don’t like the way the initiative is handled. When Borrell proposed that it seemed to be an EU-wide proposal at the Defense Ministers’ meeting in May, it was just an idea of a few member states, and there was no Negotiate with others,” the diplomat added.
On Thursday, with the exception of Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks (Artis Pabriks), most Eastern Europeans did not comment publicly on this idea, who raised the issue of the EU’s existing battle groups.
“First, we have to answer what our battle groups are actually doing (…) We have never used them,” Pabriks commented, adding that “this is not about the army, but about political will.”
Unanimity and majority decision
The problem is that any action of this kind requires unanimous agreement among the 27 EU countries, and so far no one has dared to touch this principle.
Especially in practice, this may create obstacles, especially in situations where the decision to send any troops must be made quickly, such as in the case of withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Germany is one of the EU’s most powerful military powers, but it has always been reluctant to send troops to war. Germany’s proposal will depend on the EU’s joint decision, but it does not necessarily require the approval of all 27 member states to deploy their forces.
The German Defense Minister Annegrett Kramp-Karenbauer seemed to have counterattacked a standing rapid reaction force, but at the same time Support this idea The “voluntary alliance” among the member states jointly respond to future crises.
Slovenia’s Minister of Defence, who holds the EU’s rotating presidency, called for the establishment of a new system where troops from “voluntary countries” can be dispatched in the name of the EU if the simple majority of the member states agree, rather than the required unanimity. For the battle group.
Thoughts Possibility of a group of countries It is nothing new to perform EU military missions alone in different constellations, as the EU defense community has put forward this statement before.
Talk to EURACTIV On the eve of the informal meeting in Slovenia, Tonin said, “In order to be able to respond to different crises more flexibly, we need to make more efforts to reach a consensus on Article 44, which also opens up the problematic system of using qualified majority votes. This may be a potential divisive theme.”
Article 44 stipulates that within the framework of the EU treaty, the Council can delegate the tasks of the CSDP to a group of member states, the so-called “Union of Wills.”
According to EU diplomats, Eastern European member states will be open to this option.
“But we want to point out that their application cannot lead to a bypass of the CFSP and CSDP consensus principles,” an Eastern European diplomat told EURACTIV.
