Good signals about defence convergence from London and Paris, a small improvement for CFSP

Dear Roberta and dear Peter,

Thanks for this article. I second your views that strenghtening the EDA is crucial to streamline the Member States' commitments to creating the proper capabilities for missions in the near abroad. Now, I must say that the CFSP/CSDP discourses are some of my favorit topics and I'm sure we can have fruitful discussions about that IRL.

We are still quite dependent on multilateral commitments (often also with NATO) to emanate European values and mitigate conflicts - without being regarded as « interventionist » in a dominating fashion. However, there is still too much budget lost and wasted by duplicating defence and security R&D programmes running in parallel between nationa 'corporate champions'. In Italy they will sponsor Finmeccanica, and in the Netherlands it will be TNO Defence that gets more state attention.

I don't know if you followed the news lately somewhat, but there has been a very positive indication of improved bilateral defence cooperation on the 2nd of November. On that day, President Sarkozy and PM David Cameron signed a new 'Defence Pact' that aims at sharing defence capabilities and collaboration in a range of vital strategic areas (nuclear testing, and even the sharing and joint management/maintenance costs for a common aircraft carrier by 2020). In fact, the present austerity measures that most governments imposed on themselves have this by-effect in the CFSP area. Some, like UK and France today, find ways to rationalize defence spending and harmonize (or merge) R&D and capacity-building, which was priorly separated or duplicated. Knowing the long-lasting poltical quarrels between the UK and France, it's a fine example how Europe can perform in a more coherent and efficient way. I pray for the multiplicator effect - it would certainly facilitate the objectives of the European Defence Agency.

If you're interested in the details of the French-British 'defence deal', I recommend this FT article : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/47bf13b6-e694-11df-95f9-00144feab49a.html

Best regards, Nico

Lisbon, the new diplomatic corps and federal Europe - commentaires

Good signals about defence convergence from London and Paris, a small improvement for CFSP