INTRODUCTION
In order to understand which requirements are going to define the operational needs of our forces and the tasks we try to achieve, they will this time be presented from our perspective, setting the role of the military structures within the Helsinki Headline Goal. Perhaps new light can thus be shed on the issue that lets us have a better idea of the whole subject.
From the point of view of the Common European Security and Defence Policy, the problem of equipping our forces is not more than applying the classical scheme of force planning, or force development as others in the Union prefer to term it, to the particular characteristics of the European Union institutions. The different steps in the process: establishment of a political goal, identification of operational needs to make it possible, fulfilment of requirements and correction of deficits, have to be considered one way or another when dealing with military issues. The biggest differences, as compared with the procedures followed by other major organisations dealing with security and defence matters, stem from the fact that, at least for the foreseeable future, EU-led military operations are only envisaged as a contribution to the response to international crises, and that the whole process is founded mainly on a "voluntary basis" approach.
But before going into further detail, it is important to get over the idea that what has been done up to now will not necessarily be the same after 2003. Normally, solutions adopted to create something new, as is the case with the Helsinki Headline Goal, require many ad hoc steps which may not apply once the goal is attained. In this case, perhaps just a simple maintenance task would be required.
This presentation will principally cover those aspects of capabilities in which the military structures of the Council, i.e. the Military Committee and the Military Staff, play a preponderant role. These are identification of military capabilities and general management of the way shortfalls in those capabilities are addressed.
ROLE OF THE MILITARY STRUCTURES
Once the political goal - the Helsinki Headline Goal - was established by the European Council, the military structures took the lead and played an important role in defining the military capabilities required in the EU. The Chiefs of Defence Staff of the Member States, first as the interim Military Body and then as the Military Committee, were tasked with identifying the capabilities necessary to respond to the full range of Petersberg missions. The end product, the so-called Helsinki Headline Goal Catalogue, details all the elements required to launch and conduct EU-led military operations. They are presented by service: Land, Maritime, Air, or function: Command and Control, Intelligence, Strategic Transport, etc.
Member States were given full responsibility for the next step of the process,. Taking the Catalogue of Requirements as a starting-point, and on a voluntary basis, they made substantial contributions to fulfilling the requirements. The European Union Military Staff, working under the direction of the Military Committee, compiled contributions offered by Member States in what is known as the Helsinki Force Catalogue.
Let me pause here for a moment, because I should warn you that the name of that document could be misleading. It does not in fact identify a European Force, but must be regarded as a pool of different units and capabilities that Member States are in principle willing to engage in European Union-led operations. These in no way constitute a standing force and their employment would require a case by case commitment by each Member State.
A further step, also under the responsibility of the Military Committee, was to identify the remaining capability shortfalls after Member States had made known their contributions and to evaluate operational impact. This is known as the Progress Catalogue.
Building on identified shortfalls agreed, the Council once more gave the Military Committee full responsibility, tasking it with the general management of a plan to find feasible solutions to the shortcomings. This is the process in which we are engaged right now, known as the European Capabilities Action Plan. Here again, we can observe a difference to other similar processes, in as much that the European Institutions only play a general management and coordinating role, leaving the actual work of finding remedies to the Member States, in a bottom-up approach to the problem.
REQUIREMENTS FOR PETERSBERG TASKS
And now we come to the nub of the matter: what kind of operational needs for what purposes? Let me deal with the end of the question first. The framework in which the European Union has decided to conduct military operations is that of the full range of so-called Petersberg tasks. For the sole purpose of force development, three scenarios have been considered: humanitarian assistance to civilians in the event of natural disasters, preventive deployment of forces for peacekeeping and separation of warring parties.
Not surprisingly, the elements identified in the European Union which will provide the military capabilities required to fully carry out those missions do not differ in essence from those needed in other defence and security organisations for crisis response operations: from engineering units for providing help and relief in humanitarian catastrophes to the precision munitions needed to impose peace with minimum collateral damage. After all, the same types of problems usually lead to the same types of solutions.
What can be considered a novelty is the higher demand we are placing on the readiness of our forces. But why? An outside observer might be tempted to question the high alert status demanded of some units, the more so when there is not a similarly strict requirement in other organisations that also deal with peace support operations. There are two reasons.
Firstly, the European Union has chosen to give priority to rapid response capability over other considerations. The proof is the inclusion of a time constraint in the Headline Goal as one of its main parameters: "to be able to deploy the force within sixty days". This is more exacting than the requirements placed by the other organisations involved in the same type of missions, as no time limits are prescribed at the level of their political goals, and even those identified at the military level are in principle not as demanding.
Second, some of the operations in which the Union has decided to get involved require per se a higher degree of readiness. These are the provision of humanitarian aid in case of natural disasters, which for the most part are unpredictable and require immediate action, and evacuation of EU nationals from crisis areas, which may have to be executed at very short notice. While these are missions that cannot properly be considered as exclusive to the European Union, they do not normally form part of the North Atlantic Alliance operations.
WAY AHEAD
As I have said several times during this presentation, it seems natural that unique problems should be met with unique ad hoc solutions. What I have described so far may not necessarily be needed in its entirety after 2003. In fact, the Union is already engaged in defining a capability development mechanism needed to maintain and revise the capability to carry out military operations in support of crisis response operations. No conclusions have yet been reached, as a large number of questions remain to be solved, among them the role of the different institutions, whether a cyclical process is needed and transparency and cooperation with NATO, so as to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort.
CONCLUSIONS
To summarise, the European Union, when confronted with the task of identifying the military capabilities required to accomplish the Headline Goal, followed the classic scheme of force development, well-known to the military institutions of its Member States, and adapted it to the particular political goal and institutions of the EU.
The instruments used to identify and develop those military capabilities have proved very successful. However, effective ad hoc solutions for unique problems need to be carefully considered if they are later intended for use on a routine basis.
Finally, in answer to the question presented as the theme of this sitting, the operational requirements identified in the EU to achieve the Helsinki Headline Goal are not very different to those contemplated in other organisations dealing with defence and security matters and experienced in responding to international crises where military means are used. But if one element had to be highlighted, it is the special emphasis placed on rapid response capability, as this is often the most important tool for solving an impending crisis.
