The EU presidency involved our diplomats and soldiers steering the development of the Union's embryonic military structures, writes Col Dorcha Lee
Rightly deserved praise has been given to our political leadership, diplomats and civil servants for the success of the Irish presidency. However in all the fuss, little mention has been made of the Defence Forces' contribution.
The work undertaken on the military side can be traced back to March 2000, when the interim EU Military Committee was established. This was a direct consequence of EU Council decisions taken the previous year at Cologne and Helsinki to give the EU a military capability to conduct peace support and humanitarian tasks. It was also in line with a new policy that a regional organisation such as the EU would share the burden of such tasks with the United Nations.
Beginnings are often difficult, and the establishment of the interim Military Committee in March 2000 was no exception. While agreement was always in unanimity, the Portuguese and French presidencies adopted a tactic of rapid advance on issues which could be agreed, with contentious issues being left to the end.
Within the interim Military Committee and its Working Group there was at first a certain anxiety among the four non-NATO member-states representatives (Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden) that the NATO 11 would gang up and impose their views on the process.
As it turned out, fears of a NATO "takeover" did not materialise. Political issues were passed on to the Political and Security Committee to resolve. In the military fora, the non-neutral 11 (as this writer liked to call them) understood and largely respected the non-NATO members' positions. This understanding was in part because the main military players had worked together in the Western European Union. Most non-NATO and NATO personnel knew one another and were familiar with the constraints under which each worked.
The four neutrals' fears were assuaged when an Irish general, Brig Gen Seán Brennan, was appointed as an assistant chief of staff in the EU Military Staff, and a Finnish general, Gen Hagglund, was selected as chairman of the new Military Committee.
Irish officers working in both Dublin and Brussels have a vast experience in UN peacekeeping, unmatched by any of the other military delegations to the EU. Steeped in the UN tradition, initial expectations were, understandably, that our UN peacekeeping experience would be a significant factor in developing an EU peacekeeping capability. These expectations did not materialise, as there was no mechanism available outside NATO to develop the studies and analysis required by the EU.
Over the last six months Brig Gen Frank McKevitt headed up the military team in Brussels, functioning as the military representative of the chief of staff and the presidency on the EU Military Committee. His deputy, Col Fergus Bushell, was the presidency representative on the Military Committee Working Group and Col Tom Hodson chaired the Headline Goal Task Force. Col Liam McNamee and Lieut Col Paul Pakenham were key members of the Defence Forces presidency team in Dublin. There were several other officers and NCOs on the team, both in Brussels and Dublin.
At a military level, the ultimate responsibility rests with the chiefs of defence staffs of the 25 member-states. For the Irish presidency, the Irish Chief of Staff, Lieut Gen Jim Sreenan, had responsibility for consensus-building, the implementation of the military work programme, and the development of military advice.
The Irish presidency successfully facilitated the integration of the military representatives of the 10 new EU member-states into the Military Committee and its working groups.
The four-year deadline to have an EU capability, known as a "headline goal" to be able to deploy a force of up to 60,000 personnel and conduct EU-led military operations, expired last December.
There is much work still to be done to refine and update this capability. It is not a military force per se, neither a standing army, nor an army on standby. It is, instead, a voluntary commitment made by each member-state to have a military capability available, at specified degrees of readiness, for EU-led operations. The Irish presidency carried this work forward.
Reflecting the changing European security and defence environment, the Irish team developed a new headline goal for the year 2010. This provides for a "battle group" of 1,500 personnel, at a very high state of readiness.
The Irish team continued the work in the field of defence capabilities, development research, and acquisition of armaments. An agency, known as the European Defence Agency, will be up and functioning by the end of the year.
The Irish presidency military work programme remained focused on strengthening the EU military capability to conduct peace support and humanitarian operations. It avoided being dragged into long-term EU defence issues. However, the bombing of an EU capital, Madrid, on March 11th underlined the need for EU member-states to co-operate on the war against terrorism. This co-operation may need to develop at a military level at some stage. All member-states are vulnerable to terrorism; as the more threatened large member-states enhance their security the terrorist may go for perceived softer targets in the smaller states.
It is a sad reflection on the EU that only during the Irish presidency was a serious effort being made at the military level to tap into the UN experience. The Irish presidency, under the auspices of the Defence Forces, hosted a seminar on the theme "Synergies between the UN and EU Military Crisis Management".
The EU has much to learn from past UN experience, both at a political and military level. For military personnel, peacekeeping can, at times, be the antithesis of normal combat operations. Twenty five years ago in Lebanon I coined a phrase to express this dichotomy: "In peacekeeping, he who hesitates wins, and if the UN gets both sides to a conflict to hesitate, peace wins."
The Irish presidency has highlighted the need to draw on the UN experience. Hopefully this will be continued by subsequent presidencies.
In the meantime, "well done" to the lads in green!
Col Dorcha Lee (retd) is a former Defence Forces Provost Marshal and Director of Military Police. He was the first Irish military representative to the EU Military Committee when it met, on an interim basis, in March 2000.