A good meeting – many thanks to our Finnish hosts for their hospitality and organisation. The main business was a good discussion of a very fascinating document produced by the Agency – a “Long-Term Vision of ESDP Capability and Capacity Needs”. In other words – the document attempts to address such questions as: What will the world be like in 20 years time? What will ESDP operations be like? What tools will we need to support the European Security Strategy? What problems and dilemmas must our defence planners confront?
It is vital to have this kind of 20-year perspective, given the lead times typically involved in developing defence capability. Decisions we take, or fail to take, today will affect whether we have the right military capabilities, and the right capacities in Europe’s defence technological and industrial base, in the third decade of this century. Of course, the document does not provide, and does not pretend to provide, a comprehensive route map into the future. It needs to be thought of more as a compass bearing to help us advance into the fog of the future – a line of march that we will need to check at regular intervals.
The document will be released to you shortly. It is the condensation of a very great deal of wisdom and advice harvested from, amongst others, the Institute of Security Studies in Paris, the EU’s own Military Committee, and eminent scientists and technologists across Europe. The output is concise and – I hope you will agree – both stimulating and readable. It is not a “consensus document” – so not every Defence Minister in our Steering Board has necessarily subscribed to each and every thought and expression in it. What the Steering Board have done, however, is welcome it as a solid foundation on which to build the next stage of the EDA’s agendas.
To go back to my image of a compass, the Ministers agreed that this document is pointing in the right direction, as far as any of us can discern. We also took stock in the Steering Board of progress towards establishing a new joint investment programme for defence research and technology efforts in the force protection area. Those of you who have followed the EDA’s affairs will know that we have been working on this for nearly a year, from the point when the Hampton Court summit identified the need to increase defence research and technology spend in Europe, and to do more of it collaboratively. We are very close to achieving the first such joint programme – with a substantial majority of our Member States taking part, and a joint fund to apply to the research objectives amounting to some tens of millions of euros. We noted that one last push is necessary, to get the last details nailed down in a way which suits the maximum number of potential contributors.
But we directed the Agency to conclude its efforts with the participating Member States and to produce its “best and final” proposal for us to decide on in the Steering Board when next we meet, in Brussels in mid-November. Finally, we looked at the medium-term perspective for the Agency – what should its priorities be, and what financial framework should it have, over the next three years. That is formally a decision for the Council to make at the end of the year. Today we agreed on the priorities. Some further work on the Financial Framework is still needed for a Council Decision in November.
Altogether, then, an interesting and productive meeting, underlining how the Agency is increasingly fulfilling our hopes that it should “make a difference” in the development of the capabilities we need to support our agreed policies.