FOU, Alm.del - 2011-12 - Bilag 40: Afrapportering fra rådsmødet (udenrigsanliggender - forsvarsdelen) d. 30/11-11, fra forsvarsministeren

Council conclusions onCommon Security and Defence Policy3130th FOREIGN AFFAIRS Council meetingBrussels, 1 December 2011The Council adopted the following conclusions:"1.In the context of a growing demand for the European Union to become a more capable,coherent and strategic global actor, the Council reiterates the continuing need for acomprehensive approach that increasingly mobilises the different tools at the EU’s disposal aspart of a coherent and effective strategy to achieve the EU’s objectives.The Council underlines the importance of CSDP as an essential element for such acomprehensive approach. Effective CSDP needs to be underpinned by sufficient and adequatecapabilities – in terms of personnel, assets and intelligence analytical support. Against thebackdrop of current financial constraints, the challenge for Europe is to do better with less andto deliver on its responsibilities. In this regard, the Council stresses the importance of fullyexploiting the wide variety of existing national and EU resources, maximising synergies andstrengthening cooperation.The Council emphasizes that further progress in CSDP is necessary, and remains fullycommitted to the comprehensive civil-military level of ambition of 2008, as set out in theDeclaration on Strengthening Capabilities.In this regard, the Council welcomes the work carried out by the High Representative and theEEAS in line with the Council Conclusions on CSDP of 31 January 2011 and of21 March 2011, and following the Weimar initiative joined by Italy and Spain, the HighRepresentative’s report on CSDP of 11 July 2011 and subsequent contributions by MemberStates.

The Council remains fully committed to contributing to security and stability in regions wherethe EU is operationally engaged. While considering new CSDP actions, the Councilunderlines its full commitment to maintain the current engagement to the ongoing CSDPmissions and operations.The Council notes with concern that several missions and operations face considerablechallenges in generating sufficient resources to fulfil their key objectives. The Council,renewing its call on Member States to provide the necessary resources, undertakes to makeevery effort to address these gaps.The Council also recognises the need to continuously improve the performance of CSDPmissions and operations, including through evaluation of outcomes, benchmarking, impactassessment, identifying and implementing lessons learned and developing best practices foreffective and efficient CSDP action.The Council recalls the importance of a continued and systematic consideration of aspectsrelating to human rights, gender and children affected by armed conflict from the earlyplanning of CSDP missions and operations, during their conduct as well as in the subsequentlessons learned processes.

In line with the ambition to fulfil the EU's potential in promoting and preserving peace andstability, the EU will actively and effectively use the full spectrum of instruments at itsdisposal for crisis management and conflict prevention. The EU will act through CSDPmissions and operations to add value, on the basis of identified needs, with clear objectivesand exit strategies to deliver and sustain results.The Council welcomes the concrete steps by the High Representative to counterinterconnected security threats in the Horn of Africa, particularly piracy, in the context of theEU strategic framework for the Horn of Africa and in view of establishing further synergiesamongst the various CSDP initiatives in the region. To underpin this effort, the Council hasagreed to revert in early 2012 to the issue of extending the mandate of EUNAVFOR Atalantauntil the end of 2014, and will approve the Crisis Management Concept for a civilian CSDPmission with military expertise to strengthen regional maritime capacities in Somalia and inthe wider Horn of Africa region. The Council notes ongoing work for a CSDP mission inSouth Sudan, with a focus on airport security.The Council also remains committed to addressing the security challenges in the Sahel, andencourages the High Representative to take forward preparatory work for furtherconsideration by the end of the year with a view to a CSDP engagement to reinforce regionalsecurity capabilities in the region, in close cooperation with the African Union.The Council reaffirms the EU's readiness to provide further assistance to Libya across a rangeof possible sectors, including inter alia security sector reform and border management.Options for possible CSDP action should be elaborated in early 2012 in full respect of theprinciple of Libyan ownership and priorities and in cooperation with the UN.

Civilian capabilities14.The Council stresses the importance of strengthening and sustaining the efforts for the civiliancapability development, in particular in the context of current financial constraints, buildingon the work conducted under the two Civilian Headline Goals and in synergy with other EUinstruments, with a view to responding more rapidly and effectively to crisis managementtasks, and invites the HR to propose a multi-annual work programme in this regard.The Council calls for a more effective use of national strategies in facilitating the deploymentof civilian personnel. The Council stresses the need for increased efforts involving inparticular national ministries of foreign affairs, defence, interior, justice and finance, as wellas through dedicated high level meetings at EU level. The Council also stresses theimportance of building on the ongoing developments in strengthening ties between theCommon Security and Defence Policy and the area of Freedom, Security and Justice in linewith the competences of the bodies concerned and underlines the need to improve thecooperation between these actors as part of a broader effort in developing synergies betweenthe internal and external dimensions of security.The Council stresses the need for better use of the existing resources, calling for moreeffective recruitment processes, including for management positions, and more efficient useof the expertise developed by the mission personnel for civilian missions. More training and,as appropriate, national career incentives will help equip the CSDP missions with qualifiedand motivated personnel.The Council also invites the High Representative and the Commission to examine improvedways of force generation based on a sound regulatory framework in order to make proposalsin the first half of 2012 for consideration by the Council.

The Council welcomes Member States' commitments in specific concrete projects, facilitatedby the European Defence Agency (EDA) in the fields of: Air to Air Refuelling; SmartMunitions; Aircrew Training; Naval Training and Logistics; European Transport Hubs;Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance including Space Situational Awareness;Medical Support; Military Satellite Communications, and looks forward to the concretedefinition of these projects as soon as possible, as well as the development of other poolingprojects on the basis of existing initiatives, such as: maritime surveillance, HelicopterTraining, Satellite Communication (Procurement Cell). The Council welcomes the promisingareas for pooling and sharing identified by the EU Chiefs of Defence (CHODs) which willprovide further impetus to EDA’s ongoing work and define new opportunities.While welcoming the significant initial efforts, the Council recalls the need to developcooperation on military capabilities on a longer term and more systematic basis. It encouragesintensified work on enablers for increased cooperation (in particular best practices, models forcooperation, lessons learned) and incentives (including the exchange of national experienceson reinvesting savings in defense) which will facilitate commitments of the Member States.The Council stresses the need to further examine the impact of reduced defence spending oncapabilities, including its possible impact on key industrial and technological capacities to bemaintained and developed in Europe. The Council encourages further synergies between EDAand the European Commission, in particular in the field of Research and Technology, inparticular regarding the new European Framework Programme for Research and Technology(Horizon 2020).The Council welcomes the existing bilateral and multilateral initiatives among MemberStates, such as the ongoing cooperation between France and the UK as well as numerousother ongoing and emerging regional initiatives, which through innovative methods ofpooling and sharing contribute to improving overall military capabilities. These initiativescontribute to the dynamic for stimulating further opportunities for cooperation between theMember States.The Council invites the EDA to take forward work on all strands above including proposalsfor new areas of cooperation and concrete projects as well as for longer term pooling andsharing. The Council also recalls the commitment of the EU Chiefs of Defence to establish orwiden collaborative projects by mid-2012. The Council urges Member States to take on therole of lead nation for concrete projects, and will assess the progress made in April 2012.The Council also underlines the need to further analyse and address the constraints related tothe availability, usability, and deployability of existing military capabilities in CSDPoperations and missions. In this respect, the Council also recalls its Conclusions on ESDP of17 November 2009.

The Council confirms its full commitment to the level of ambition as agreed in theBattlegroup concept. It recalls that Battlegroups provide the EU with a specific rapid reactioncapability and underlines the importance of further facilitating their use in CSDP operations.Battlegroups contribute to increasing inter-operability among Member States and remain avehicle for the transformation of their armed forces towards more mobile and rapidlydeployable forces.The Council noted that in the first semester of 2012 only one Battlegroup will be on stand-by,and urges enhanced efforts in order to remedy such shortfalls in the future.The Council encourages further work relating to Battlegroups such as enhancing thecooperation between Member States on strategic enablers and niche capabilities, enhancingthe interaction between Battlegroups and the EU level and the possibilities for Battlegroupinteraction with civilian actors. The Council invites the High Representative to present theresults of these various work strands in the course of the first semester of 2012.The Council notes the ongoing work on the review of the Athena mechanism for financingmilitary operations with a view to an agreement by the end of this year.

Improving the EU’s performance in planning and conducting missions and operations29.The Treaty of Lisbon offers a strong framework and a number of new instruments for the EUto act as an effective and coherent global actor. The creation of the European External ActionService (EEAS), and the integration of CSDP structures within it, in full respect of thespecificities and particular functions of these structures, is a key step in ensuring a morecoherent, strategic and synergetic use of all EU policy instruments. These opportunitiesshould be used to their optimal extent for EU action in the field.The Council stressed that improving CSDP will also require significant improvement in theEU's performance in planning and conducting CSDP civilian missions and militaryoperations, inter alia by enhancing civilian expertise and by better integrating the civilian andmilitary dimensions, which requires continuous efforts. The Council also calls forimprovements to civilian and military planning, through ensuring clear mandates andenhanced capacities, taking into account cost-efficiency and resource implications, for theCrisis Management and Planning Directorate and the EU Military Staff to enable earlier andmore effective advanced planning (up to the preparation of Concepts of Operations) to speedup decision-making at the political level, improve information exchange, identify civil-military synergies and strengthen close cooperation with other international organisations.With a view to achieving greater efficiency and better synergies between civilian and militaryplanning, and in order to adapt CSDP to the new institutional reality following the entry intoforce of the Lisbon Treaty, the Council invites the High Representative to propose a review ofthe procedures for EU crisis management, which date from 2003.The Council calls for making optimal use of the existing structures. In this context, when thenature of the operation does not require a national HQ, the Council stands ready to activate onan ad hoc basis the Operations Centre in accordance with its terms of reference for a specificCSDP Operation. On this basis, the Council agrees to accelerate planning for the activation ofthe Operations Centre for the Horn of Africa operations, at the latest by the next ForeignAffairs Council.

Partnerships34.The Council underlines the importance of strengthening EU-NATO cooperation in crisismanagement, in a spirit of mutual reinforcement and with due respect for each organisation’sdecision-making autonomy. In this regard, the Council welcomed the work done by the HighRepresentative in implementing the mandate of the European Council of September 2010 bymeans of a pragmatic step-by-step approach, while keeping with the overall objective ofbuilding a true organisation-to-organisation relationship. The Council called on the HighRepresentative to pursue efforts to further develop efficient and effective EU cooperation withNATO, in particular in the areas where both operate side by side.The Council welcomes close cooperation between the EU and NATO on Pooling and Sharingand Smart Defence/Multinational Approaches initiatives, in order to ensure coherence, mutualreinforcement and non-duplication of these efforts. In this context, the Council encourages theclose staff-to-staff contacts to continue in a transparent manner.Reiterating the importance of the longstanding and wide-ranging cooperation between the EUand the UN in crisis management, the Council underlines the need for continued closecooperation and coordination including in operational theatres where both are engaged, inparticular in Afghanistan, Somalia, Kosovo and DRC, or where future engagement isenvisaged, notably in Libya. The Council welcomes the ongoing work with regard tostrengthening EU-UN cooperation in crisis management and EU support to UN peacekeepingefforts through CSDP. In this respect the Council encourages the High Representative topursue the current initiatives and to bring forward proposals for concrete actions to be taken inthe first half of 2012.The Council underlines the valuable practical contributions and political support to CSDPmissions and operations offered by partner countries. The Council calls for furtherdevelopment in CSDP cooperation with Eastern and Mediterranean partners on a case-by-casebasis, thus contributing to enhancing regional security and stability. Noting ongoing work onCSDP cooperation with partner countries, the Council welcomes the efforts of the HighRepresentative to further pursue substantial dialogue and cooperation with all partnercountries, including strategic partners, and to develop relations with new partners. In thiscontext, the Council welcomes the important role of the European Security and DefenceCollege in training and in particular its recent initiatives with partners such as trainingprogrammes and high-level training visits to partner countries. Work will continue to be takenforward within the existing framework, as defined by various European Councils andsubsequent arrangement and in respect of the institutional framework and decision-makingautonomy of the EU.