Paris, 11 May 2005. − Speaking during the first round table of the colloquy held at the Joint Services Defence College in Paris, organised by the Forum for the Future (whose President is Jacques Baumel), President Stef Goris said that if the European Union did no more than build interstate police systems to fight terrorism, relying on border guards to protect its territory, “this would hardly chime with the deep-seated reasons which had led the EU to decide to shoulder its international responsibilities and acquire the corresponding political and military means”. In his view “the EU should become a promoter of external security, with one of its main objectives being to guarantee stability on its periphery without outside help”.
 

If the EU wants to earn respect as the promoter of a more humane form of globalisation by defending the values in which it believes, and if it has more to say to the world instead of just exercising power, it “will need political and military autonomy”. The President said that the EU “must take political responsibility in a multipolar world in which it is no longer possible for any European country to influence the balance of force on its own”.
Mr Goris believes there is no longer any justification for drawing a distinction between the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy) and ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) given that one of the aims of foreign policy should be to ensure the security of Europe’s citizens and assets. The EU will be more effective in defending the common interests of its member states if it does not depend on choices made elsewhere. This means it must have “the autonomy to take decisions and actions”.
In the President’s view autonomy should not mean that Europeans “withdraw into their shell or renege on their alliances”. Neither should they see it as a sort of challenge to the US leadership, but rather as a natural shift within the Alliance towards a more balanced Euro-Atlantic partnership. NATO is no longer the preferred framework for US military engagement. While Europe is moving towards more universalism, US policy is becoming increasingly “nationalist” and notable for a dislike of constraints of a multinational nature and for a degree of indifference towards its allies.
President Goris considers it “urgent to build Europe as a political power so that it becomes the United States’ main partner and respected ally”. The EU should also develop credible military capabilities so that it can guarantee stability on Europe’s borders in the event of its interests not being identical to those of the US or because the Americans are engaged on other fronts. If it wants to achieve these objectives the EU should draw up a strategic concept and define the tools it needs to promote and defend common European values and interests. Autonomous action implies having a chain of command that is independent of NATO’s assets and capabilities. The EU’s ambition would be enhanced by having an intelligence capability, by being able to rely on observation and surveillance satellites with the Torrejón Satellite Centre coordinating the management and centralising the processing of satellite data, and by having a permanent capability for forward-looking analysis. The priority should be “acquiring knowledge, making the right choices and acting autonomously”.
 

Other speakers during the first round table debate considered that at present the EU’s ambitions were confined to being quantitative and that European cohesion risked breaking up in the absence of agreement on the objectives to be attained the EU’s new capabilities (Michael Stürmer for the German newspaper Die Welt).
Gilles Andréani (Senior Counsellor at the French Court of Audit and an eminent member of the IISS in London) said: “the EU must not set itself the wrong objective. In today’s interdependent and networked world, the notion of autonomy could be anachronistic”. On the other hand, the United States had in his view reacted “too defensively” to the Europeans’ stated objective of autonomous command. He suggested that while the Europeans should “learn how to say no to the United States”, they should not replace American unilateralism with European unilateralism, which was just as bad.
Ambassador Robert Hunter from the Rand Corporation, Washington, considered that the concept of strategic independence was out of date and that autonomy in security and defence was no longer possible beyond a certain level. Conversely, it was the US government which had a problem when it started to worry about the EU assigning “fifty people and a dog” to a military planning cell. Ambassador Hunter said the US could not ask Europeans to make a bigger contribution without offering them a share in the decision-making process. He suggested there should be a strategic partnership between the US and the EU covering not only military aspects but “everything that shapes the world”.