GENERAL SIR JACK DEVERELL, LIEUTENANT GENERAL SIR ROB FRY, MR DANIEL KEOHANE AND COLONEL CHRISTOPHER LANGTON

20 NOVEMBER 2007

  Q160  Mr Jenkin: We will have a choice when permanent structural co-operation is launched, the United Kingdom will have to either opt in and be subject to qualified majority voting or opt out and have no say over it at all. Is that not rather a disadvantageous place to put the United Kingdom?

  Mr Keohane: I would take that as a rather legal interpretation, if you look at the policies.

  Q161  Mr Jenkin: A rather what interpretation?

  Mr Keohane: Legal interpretation. What I mean by that is everyone knows that the UK and France are the leading players in European defence; nothing is going to happen in permanent structured co-operation or anything else on ESDP unless the United Kingdom agrees.

  Q162  Mr Jenkin: But that is not what it says, is it?

  Mr Keohane: No, no, hold on. To turn it around, over the last few years France and Germany have threatened—for example in 2003—to set up something which sort of looked a bit like permanent structured co-operation, to divide Europe and to go ahead with European defence. Why did they not do so? Because they realised they cannot go ahead on European defence without the United Kingdom, so it is very important to bear in mind the politics. Legally you are correct, but the UK actually pushed for this and is one of the biggest supporters of permanent structural co-operation, precisely because the criteria for joining it are based on capabilities and that is why they think it should also help NATO. That is my understanding.

  Mr Jenkin: But legally I am correct. Thank you.

  Q163  Chairman: Before we move on from that, if Bernard Jenkin legally is correct, should not the political position reflect the legality; should not the law be such that it actually reflects the reality on the ground?

  Mr Keohane: The reason why you want to have QMV in this area is because it is very difficult to get anything done. QMV relates strictly to the criteria for joining the group, who can join the group, it does not in terms of launching an operation; that is something that must be made very clear, that still needs unanimity. It is purely for who joins the group, what the criteria are, because otherwise it is very difficult to get anything done. As you know, in any organisation with 27 members it is very difficult to get agreement and certainly you want to avoid lowest common denominators; if European defence is to develop meaningful capabilities then it is better to have qualified majority voting. In effect, if you look, generally speaking, at EU policies—and not just at defence policy because obviously we have not had QMV in defence policy—QMV is not actually used very much because the idea is to threaten QMV politically to try and get people to do what you want them to do. You want it to be more effective because you want people to develop their capabilities, you want them to spend their money better, you want them to invest more in equipment and you want them to consider to be willing to deploy. The only way to do that is to try and encourage people to consider the consequences of being left out.

  Q164  Mr Jenkin: But, Mr Keohane, it all depends upon who "you" is in that description. If I could just point out, in Article 11(2) of the existing Treaty which is translated to the new Treaty, it says: "Member States shall support the Union's external and security policy actively and unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity." That is a very strong, legal invocation upon a non-participating Member State in the permanent structural co-operation to support whatever they decide to do actively and unreservedly. Supposing France and a few other countries decide to form a permanent structural co-operation for a particular purpose that we do not want to be involved in because we are against it, and they go off and do something we do not want, how do we stop them doing that?

  Mr Keohane: What you are referring to there is the CFSP article actually; supporting the Union's common foreign security policy is actually a foreign polity article and there is not QMV in foreign policy and anyway it only refers to where you have a common policy.

  Q165  Mr Jenkin: It is all under Title V, is it not?

  Mr Keohane: Yes, that is because the ESDP—

  Q166  Mr Jenkin: Just one last point, it is a common foreign and security policy and the ESDP is the security element of the CFSP, so this article applies to ESDP, does it not?

  Mr Keohane: No, you do not have QMV on CFSP.

  Q167  Mr Jenkin: No, but you do in ESDP.

  Mr Keohane: There is a difference procedurally.

  Mr Jenkin: That is not my question. My question is does this article apply to ESDP and the answer is it does because it is a common foreign and security policy.

  Mr Hamilton: You are actually answering your own question now.

  Q168  Chairman: Your answer is that it does; Mr Keohane, your answer is that it does not?

  Mr Keohane: No, my answer is that they are not the same thing in that QMV in ESDP only applies to the criteria for joining the group on capabilities, when you are deciding the list of criteria. When you are deciding the common policy—remember, ESDP is about implementing the foreign and security policy—it is not QMV, it is unanimous.

  Chairman: I have decided that this has gone far enough and so we will now move on to the European Defence Agency. Kevan Jones.

  Q169  Mr Jones: The EDA was set up to support Member States and improve the defence capability; has it made any useful contribution to date?

  General Deverell: I genuinely do not know and I doubt whether any of the panellists can give you a hard and fast example. What it should do, at the very least, is encourage discussion about the modalities of international co-operation, perhaps in terms of research as well as production. Whether that has borne any material fruit I really do not think, but Lord Drayson, before he went racing, gave evidence to the Committee some time ago, and he is far better placed than any of us, I think.

  Q170  Chairman: Do you think he will come back?

  General Deverell: It depends whether he wins or not. As I say, I have had a little bit to do with the European Defence Agency, and my fear is—this is not anecdotal, it was reported in a conference I attended from the NC3A, the NATO command and control agency et cetera—that they were worried that there was very little connection between the European Defence Agency and themselves at that level in terms of trying to achieve commonality—I use the word commonality in its widest sense; they were concerned about it. Now NC3A are not themselves without sin in this matter and it depends who you talk to, but there does strike me as being something of a reluctance for those two organisations to get alongside each other in the way they really ought to. There is only one set of forces, there is only one lot of money, we all know that, yet I detect a continuation along parallel lines, if not a slight drift away.

  Q171  Mr Jones: Mr Keohane, the British last week blocked the three-year budget for the Defence Agency. Can we read into that that Britain is not committed really to this project or what are the internal politics of that?

  Mr Keohane: Of course everyone knows the UK was one of the leading forces behind setting up the agency—it is worth bearing that in mind—along with France in particular. Just to make a general comment about the EDA first, before I get into the specifics of that, the EDA is an inter-governmental agency, it does not have much power of its own, it cannot force governments to do things, all it can do is try and come up with proposals and it is up to the governments then to decide whether or not they want to go ahead with them, but it is worth bearing in mind that there are at least three things the EDA has done in the last three years which are potentially extremely useful, if the governments deem to use them. One is the long term vision project, which has tried to come up with ideas on what capability we will need in 20 years time; related to that are projects on research and technology which have been difficult for the UK. They do not disagree in principle with spending more on R and T but they are not completely sure about common budgets, common funding, but the third and perhaps most important, as much for its principle as its practice, is the defence procurement code of conduct because this is supposed to help open up Europe's defence market and that of course could lead to huge efficiency gains if it were implemented properly. The problem, as I said earlier, is the EDA does not have the power to force governments to behave themselves.

  Q172  Mr Jones: What do you make of the British blocking the budget?

  Mr Keohane: Since I am based in Paris it is more difficult for me to judge, but my sense is that this is related to a much broader debate on Europe and the UK at the moment. It is certainly true that in the past the UK has been extremely supportive, both of the ESDP and the EDA in particular because it wanted to ensure that ESDP was about helping improve European military capabilities, but my sense at the moment is that it is more related with the broader debate.

  Q173  John Smith: Turkey is a key NATO power; do you think it makes any sense to develop the EDA without Turkey playing a bigger role or any role in its process? We were out there recently and they were very exercised at the fact that they felt they were getting nowhere.

  Mr Keohane: Obviously since Turkey has actually the largest army in Europe, if I remember correctly, Turkey is a major defence player in Europe. Of course, as you well know Turkey's relationship with the EU has been difficult at times, particularly on defence policy, given the impasse between the EU and NATO and the Cypriot-Turkish issue, so that unfortunately has hampered the co-operation. On the other hand, Turkey has made it clear that it is happy to participate in the ESDP missions if and when it is asked to do so and required to do so, but in general yes, the EDA should be and as far as I know is open to co-operation with non-EU members.

  Q174  Chairman: John Smith asked an extremely important question, as he always does, because Turkey was a member of the predecessor body to the EDA and it has been blocked from becoming a member of the EDA, even though every other country that was a member of the predecessor body has now, through one method or another, become a member of the EDA. Do you find that strange?

  Mr Keohane: Given the politics at the moment in the EU, no, and specifically given the politics between Cyprus and Turkey as you know are very difficult, and this of course as I said earlier is woven into the EU/NATO debate as well, so I do not find it so strange that the EDA is made up of EU members.

  Lieutenant General Fry: I do not find it remotely strange but it is profoundly reprehensible. It seems to me that both your question and, Chairman, your observation really beg probably the most profound grand strategic issue facing Europe at the present time, which is: which way does Turkey face? If this is just one of those small incremental steps that is preventing it from looking westward then it is a thoroughly bad thing.

  Chairman: It certainly is. Bernard Jenkin.

  Mr Jenkin: The Turkey point is very serious but just to revert to the relationship between ACT and EDA, is this not the kind of duplication that we were promised would not take place? You have two organisations in Europe trying to standardise weapons systems and weapons procurement; should there not just be one?

  Q175  Chairman: Do you see that link, General Deverell?

  General Deverell: I will answer it directly. I guess if you have two organisations—NATO is one, the European Union is the other—it is quite reasonable and indeed one should expect bureaucracies to create institutions which deal with particular situations they find themselves in. I do not have a problem with that. I am not sure how nations which are not in NATO can deal with a NATO body in terms of procurement of weapons systems or whatever that they wish to be involved in; there may be ways of doing that but I personally cannot see it.

  Q176  Mr Jenkin: Perhaps it should be a joint body.

  General Deverell: Of course, you may have all sorts of reasons why it cannot be a joint body. All I would say is that there is every reason why those two bodies should perceive themselves to be brothers or sisters of a single family and seek ways of improving inter-operability and compatibility which I do not detect they are doing at the moment as well as they should be. The answer to your question is, in a philosophical sense, why have two, but I think in a practical sense, a realistic political sense, a technical sense, almost certainly there will be two bodies there. They need to mesh into each other very much more effectively.

  Chairman: Moving on to Battlegroups, now it is Brian Jenkins.

  Q177  Mr Jenkins: Can I ask a series of questions to which you can give short answers because it will help me, hopefully, to understand what Battlegroups are for and also for the record what you think Battlegroups are for. In fact, what are they for? What are the criteria as regards to how they are brought together?

  General Deverell: Can you answer that question because I do not think I can.

  Lieutenant General Fry: In bits; I cannot give you necessarily a comprehensive answer. In various ways, it depends on the national solution. I think that we in this country have them as formal bodies, other countries seem to mix and match and, when that happens, it creates a very significant force generation issue because if you have not had people who have habitually operated together, asking them to come together and do something substantial is quite a difficult thing to do. The key is almost in the title: Battlegroups. Battlegroups in any real military sense are below the level of credible military force because a battlegroup is likely to be an assembly of bayonets, with very little to either support it or sustain it. So you can get it somewhere, but once it is there it represents a level of force and a radius of action that is all about demonstration rather than anything greater than that.

  Q178  Mr Jenkins: Are they intended to be deployed?

  Lieutenant General Fry: They are intended to be deployed but for rather more cosmetic purposes than war-fighting purposes, because I do not think in terms of the military capacity that they represent that they have the capacity for sustained war-fighting.

  Q179  Mr Jenkins: Do you think that through Battlegroups we might be able to transform the military capabilities across Europe?

  Lieutenant General Fry: I think you are starting at too low a level to have that ambition. I sound as though I am being rather dismissive and I do not intend that because I do think they have an important function in signalling political will and intent but they are unlikely to be a military solution entirely by themselves.