Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Financial constraints have encouraged European governments to cooperate in
defence capacity-building. The so-called
agenda has advanced in
recent years. In February 2012 the UK and France signed an agreement to
deepen defence cooperation, through an integrated maritime
'
burden sharing
'
eet, joint exercises
in the Mediterranean and inception of a joint expeditionary force by 2016.
Germany and Italy have also signed a memorandum on procurement coopera-
tion. Smaller groupings of Nordic states and the Benelux and Visegrad groups
have similarly deepened such cooperation. The 2010 Ghent framework has given
a coordinating umbrella for these various pooling and sharing initiatives. NATO
s
Smart Defence initiative has taken the trend further. In 2012 the European
Defence Agency was given a strengthened statute, and the defence sector was
opened to more single market discipline in 2009.
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At the end of 2012 member
states agreed a new Code of Conduct for Pooling and Sharing. A European
Commission Task Force on Defence has explored ways of removing barriers to
cooperation between defence
'
rms.
The December 2012 EU summit charged the European Commission and the
European External Action Service with drawing up proposals to strengthen the
EU
s security policy and defence capabilities. Leaders committed to discussing
defence cooperation at a summit in December 2013, for the
'
rst time since 2008.
This summit focused on cost-saving capability-sharing, with leaders agreeing to
develop jointly drones and satellite surveillance and to draw up a maritime security
strategy; its conclusions make cursory reference to common security and defence
policy (CSDP) being relevant to energy security and to a putative EU
'
security of
regime.
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However, the EU
supply
'
icts has
been increasingly questioned. Some observers worry that the EU has moved pro-
gressively further from its commitment to liberal
'
s preparedness to intervene e
ectively to resolve con
-
cosmopolitan security policies.
Development aid has been reduced to con
ict-ridden states. One eminent security
expert notes that the whole notion that European states can
'
do something
'
to
.
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It is
doubtful, argue some academics, that European policy-makers or publics have
come to accept the legitimacy of anything other than very limited and narrowly
de
mitigate con
ict
in unstable parts of
the world has
'
lost momentum
'
ned humanitarian intervention.
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No pioneers have stepped forward to advance the
exible defence cooperation
foreseen in the Lisbon Treaty. The External Action Service itself laments that crisis
response mechanisms still need to improve to give substance to the EU
'
s pro-
ict resolution.
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Three new CSDP missions were deployed in 2012: to enhance maritime
capacity around the Horn of Africa; to protect an airport in South Sudan; and to
train security services in Niger. Yet these were all extremely modest missions,
claimed
'
comprehensive approach
'
to con
