Nicholas Soames explains Conservative fears that EU defence plans could undermine NATO

Since the end of the Cold War, both NATO and the European Union have changed along with Europe’s changed strategic partnership. While NATO has remained a collective defence organisation, at the same time EU members have taken steps to further political integration that includes development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy and a defence arm that underpins it.

However, this evolution has caused considerable transatlantic friction over security responsibilities. While it is true that there is a need for enhanced European defence capabilities to enable the allies to better share their burden, and to ensure that post Cold War NATO embraces combating of terrorism and countering proliferation of WMD, there remain potential risks of duplicating resources, decoupling European and North American security and discriminating against those NATO members that are not members of the EU.

Most of our European allies lack mobile and deployable forces that can be sustained away from the European theatre. Last year, then-NATO secretary general Lord Robertson said that “out of 1.4 million soldiers under arms, the 18 non-US allies have 55,000 deployed on multinational operations...yet they feel overstretched". In a similar vein, NATO supreme allied commander General James Jones told the US Congress in March this year that only three to four per cent of European forces are “expeditionary deployable”.

There is justified worry that NATO and the EU might compete for the use of more mobile, high readiness forces. As we know, the EU is in a process of developing its own rapid reaction forces for crisis management. Some of these units are double hatted for use by either EU or NATO. The issue of which organisation, NATO or the EU, could use national forces if there were simultaneous crisis is yet to be resolved. Furthermore, an issue raised by parallel NATO and EU capability initiatives is the problem of possible overlap or wastage of resources.

The Conservative Party’s policy on the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) has therefore always been conditioned by certain safeguards.

NATO must be protected and enhanced. It is the only security forum that binds the United States to Europe. It should be the organisation of first resort for all military tasks that are not purely national in nature. This does not exclude the possibility of European nations taking primary or even exclusive responsibility for intervening in a particular crisis. But all such crises should be handled at the NATO table.

ESDP should be drawn back under the NATO umbrella. There is no justification for separate EU military structures. Already in 1996, NATO was being restructured to embrace the idea of a European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI). Crucially, however, this was within the NATO framework, with "separable but not separate" capabilities and so a markedly different concept to ESDP, with its autonomous aspect. Of course, the Western European Union (WEU) was foreseen as the handmaiden of ESDI. WEU, effectively, no longer exists and fresh thinking is therefore required.

We should indeed seek to have greater defence cooperation between European countries without the institutional involvement of the EU.  This includes not only operational capabilities but also collaborative research and development and equipment projects. However, these should not be exclusively European arrangements. New defence industrial alliances should be developed wherever they can best be achieved to ensure the UK retains leading edge R&D and production capacity. These may be with European, North American or other partners.

We need a more imaginative policy within NATO to give the alliance greater political cohesion and military capability that is relevant to the real threats and ensures full-bodied commitment by the Americans and greater burden sharing by the Europeans.

Furthermore, we strongly believe that the only way to improve Europe’s defence capabilities is by investment in cutting edge defence systems, rather than establishing a politico-military bureaucracy in Brussels.

The security, freedom and prosperity of the European and North American allies are inextricably linked. The longstanding commitment of the North American democracies to the preservation of peace and security in Europe is vital.

The presence in Europe of the conventional and nuclear forces of the United States provides the essential linkage with the United States strategic deterrent and it represents expression of that commitment. This presence must be maintained. In the same way, a free and independent Europe is vital to North America’s security. The credibility of allied defence cannot be maintained without a major contribution. This commitment must be maintained.

Hon Nicholas Soames is Conservative MP for Mid Sussex and shadow defence secretary

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