Deutsche Welle (English edition)
EU security strategy gets an overhaul — but will it really be an upgrade?
The European Union’s foreign policy chief has warned that "Europe is in danger." But his new recommendations must overcome political blockades to boost the bloc's ability to defend itself.
"Europe cannot afford to be a bystander in a world order that is mainly shaped by others." This longstanding lament is a key theme in the opening paragraphs of a document updating the EU's security strategy for the next five to 10 years. Shepherded by EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell, it warns governments that current tactics and practices are inadequate to face an increasingly perilous future.
Named the "strategic compass," the plan promises to provide a streamlined assessment of threats and challenges and their implications, greater coherence and common sense of purpose, new ways and means to improve collective security, and measurement of milestones to ensure progress.
"Major geopolitical shifts are challenging Europe's ability to promote its vision and defend its interests," says a November 8 draft of the document, which has now been submitted to foreign and defense ministers and seen by DW.
Borrell says he will provide at least two more drafts of the plan incorporating governments' views between now and its scheduled approval at a March summit of EU leaders devoted to defense. The "more hostile security environment" requires increased capacity, resilience and willingness to act, the draft reads.
"Lack of unity, passivity, delays and poor coordination
carry a real cost." Kabul a kick in the teeth
That was painfully evident as recently as August when the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. European militaries acknowledged then that they were unable to secure Kabul Airport even for a day without the assistance of the US, which rejected allies' requests to delay its full departure.
This humiliation fueled added interest in one of the strategic compass' most eagerly awaited recommendations: the creation by 2025 of an EU "rapid deployment capacity" consisting of up to 5,000 troops.
Borrell envisions the bloc agreeing next year on how, when and where such a force could be sent — and from 2023, beginning regular live exercises of the force.
Rapid-response force garners most reaction
Niklas Novaky, a senior research officer with the Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies in Brussels, says the rapid-reaction capability could be a step forward if it doesn't meet the same fate as EU battlegroups, which have existed since 2007 but never been deployed.
But, Novaky notes, "We really have to wait until like next March to even see whether this proposed EU rapid deployment capacity will make it into the final document…because we know that not all EU countries are completely enthusiastic about it."
Novaky says he's disappointed that more attention is not paid to the security of supply and strategic stockpiling — "especially in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, given the shortages that we witnessed last year and the shortages there are still witnessing in certain sectors," he says.
"This would have been fundamentally a positive thing to do."
But Novaky underscores the significance of other proposals as well, such as the "rapid hybrid response teams" to help deal with irregular threats such as Belarus encouraging the massing of migrants on its borders with Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. The document also urges more focus on malicious cyber activities and foreign information manipulation and interference. "We will ensure synergies and explore further avenues for counter-hybrid cooperation with NATO,” the draft says.
Letting 'coalitions of the willing' work
In 2023, after these capabilities are built up, the document envisions, governments will loosen the rules governing the implementation of Article 44 of the EU treaty — never before invoked — which would allow "coalitions of the willing" to act on the EU's behalf without requiring the participation of all 27 governments.
Allowing more autonomy for operations inside the bloc would be a crucial evolution, says Jana Puglierin, head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relation, because she says it's still obvious throughout this document that member countries disagree on some of the most fundamental issues, including what or who is a threat.
Russia was not mentioned by name in the compass' section about the strategic environment the bloc must deal with. "I was really surprised," Puglierin says to DW about the omission; the reference to Moscow only came later in the "great power competition" section.
"It is somewhat odd that it's not mentioned but I think it reflects also kind of the difficulty that member states still have to find common ground on Russia and to embrace basically one coherent narrative," she says.
The compass describes the relationship with China — the EU's second-biggest trading partner after the US — as a necessary one to address global challenges but also a relationship that raises concern due to its "increasingly assertive regional behavior."
Trust deficit in defense
But not only is the EU split
on who's an enemy, Puglieren explains, it's also divided on who are friends — and that's also a problem for acting together. Having participated in many discussions about the strategic compass during its drafting phase, she says she has heard time and again that "even a distracted United States" is trusted more by some EU governments than their own European partners.
"As long as this is the case," she says, "I think it's very difficult to move forward in an EU framework because the fundamental and underlying question that the compass has difficulties to solve is the question of trust."
Puglierin believes the strategic compass is an improvement on the last five-year strategy laid out in 2016 — but that "much more radical steps would be necessary, greater investments, more political will."
She says the gap is widening exponentially by the day between the threats the EU faces and its response.
"Other actors like China and the US are investing massively in new capabilities and technologies,” she notes. "The EU is falling behind."
ties linked to the regime.
But with the situation escalating in the wrong direction, critics argue the EU's method has proved ineffective.
"The European Union's response has been slow and irresolute," Judy Dempsey, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe think tank, told DW. "Lukashenko, likely with the support of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, has used the migration issue to punish Brussels for slapping sanctions on his regime. Both Moscow and Minsk know that Europe's visceral reaction to migration is one of its greatest vulnerabilities."
But the EU has insisted its approach is working.
"Why do we have reason to believe the sanctions are biting?" European Commission spokesperson Peter Stano told reporters on Tuesday. "Because the Lukashenko regime starts to behave like a gangster regime, because it's hurting them and they don't know what else to do."
Brussels has accused Belarus of trying to destabilize the EU by bringing in migrants and encouraging them to cross its borders — especially Poland and Lithuania — in retaliation for EU sanctions.
EU teeing up broader sanctions
Now, more sanctions appear to be on the way. Von der Leyen is calling on EU member states to "finally approve" an extended sanctions regime, which is now making its way through the bloc's internal procedures.
Technical work to broaden the scope of new sanctions to include human trafficking is ongoing, an EU diplomat who asked not to be named told DW. The move would beef up the EU's power to target those facilitating the migration routes it claims Belarus is using to shuttle people toward the bloc.
The new sanctions package may also include measures against Belarusian airline Belavia and companies leasing aircraft to the firm, the diplomat said.
EU ambassadors are likely to give their initial backing to the new sanctions criteria on Wednesday, according to several other diplomats, with further technical work to follow. If this is completed in time, foreign ministers would then be expected to give their political green light next Monday.
Beyond a fifth package of sanctions, the EU is also mulling new measures against airlines it believes are "active in human trafficking" — in other words, involved in transporting migrants to Belarus.
According to one Polish diplomat, the number of flights into Belarus each week has increased by more than 50 since the start of the border crisis.
The European Commission is regularly monitoring the patterns, frequency and occupancy of flights to Minsk from around a dozen countries including Iran, Syria, Qatar, India, South Africa and Russia, spokesperson Stano confirmed to DW.
Working with countries of origin, transit
The EU will also be flexing its diplomatic muscles in the coming days, sending its foreign affairs and migration chiefs to those countries which are sites of origin and transit for Minskbound migrants.
Brussels hopes these meetings will "ensure that [countries] act to prevent their own nationals from falling into the trap set by the Belarusian authorities," a spokesperson said.
EU officials will be pushing foreign governments to better coordinate on the return and repatriation of their citizens, and to consider suspending flights to Minsk.
But overall, Dempsey's expectations for swift and effective measures are not high. "Don't expect any quick decisions," said the Carnegie Europe expert.
Poland turns down EU sup
port
Beyond these efforts, Brussels is legally limited in what it can achieve. Over the past few weeks, frustration has been mounting in Brussels over Poland's refusal to ask for support in managing the border crisis.
While neighboring Lithuania has drafted in help from the EU's border agency Frontex, the bloc's police agency Europol and the European Asylum Support Office, Poland has not requested EU support.
"Poland has an ongoing battle with Brussels over the rule of law situation, and so Poland is trying to show that it can manage the problem alone. Asking the EU for help would not necessarily be an easy thing for the Polish government to do," Joanna Hosa of the European Council on Foreign Relations told DW
Warsaw and Brussels have been involved in a drawn-out standoff over judicial independence and the primacy of EU law. In late October, the European Court of Justice imposed a fine of €1 million ($1.2 million) a day on Poland to prevent what it called "serious and irreparable harm'' to the EU's legal order and values.
"If the situation escalates as quickly as has been happening recently, it's possible that Poland realizes it must request help," Hosa said. "The EU would have to convince Poland that this won't be linked to the rule-of-law fight. If Poland is to cooperate with the EU on this, these two issues have to be disassociated as much as possible."
A second Polish official told DW that Warsaw does cooperate with Frontex and keeps both the EU and Frontex informed of the situation. Still, the official stressed, border management falls within the legal remit of national governments and is not an EU competence.
Fears of a humanitarian crisis unfolding
But with several deaths already recorded on the border, there are serious fears of a humanitarian crisis unfolding.
Civil society groups and press are barred from entering a zone delineated by Poland along its border with Belarus, and Brussels' attempts to send a delegation to inspect conditions on the ground have so far been rebuffed by Warsaw.
"The situation on the border has gone from bad to worse," Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty's EU office, told DW. "We're really concerned about people being ping-ponged back and forth and there are very worrying reports about treatment on both sides.
"People seek asylum in a moment of crisis and the asylum rules we have are precisely designed to deal with crisis moments. This is not an excuse to lower standards of protection," she said.
Amid the sanctions, statements and political saber-rattling, people are stranded on Poland's border with Belarus, and winter is approaching.