EU seeks US detour after Afghan fallout
BRDO CASTLE, Slovenia, Sept 2, (AP): Still reeling from the European Union’s shortcomings in Afghanistan, officials from the 27-nation bloc on Thursday discussed ways to improve their response to future crises and not be so reliant on the U.S.
One EU official with direct knowledge of the ministerial discussions, which also involved NATO and U.N. representatives, said there was a general consensus to acknowledge the “fiasco” that followed the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan.
But he said that nobody put the blame on the U.S. administration. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to be quoted in the media.
European ministers of defense gathered in Slovenia to look at ways to improve the bloc’s operational engagement and develop a rapid response force capable of operating in difficult military theaters. They discussed plans for the so-called strategic compass, a document aiming at harmonizing crisis management and defining defense ambitions for the bloc that is expected to be drafted before the end of the year.
“It’s clear that the need for more European defense has never been as much as evident as today after the events in Afghanistan,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
“There are events that catalyze the history,” he said. “Sometimes something happens that pushes the history, it creates a breakthrough and I think the Afghanistan events of this summer are one of these cases.”
The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the rushed airlift operation out of the country that followed the U.S. decision to pull out from the country have laid bare the EU’s dependency on its ally. Without American support, European countries wouldn’t have been able to guarantee the safe passage of their citizens or even their troops out of the war-torn country.
“The strategic situation, the geostrategic changes, show that now we need a stronger Europe,” said Claudio Graziano, the chairman of the EU military committee. “The situation in Afghanistan, Libya, Middle East, Sahel, show that now it’s the time to act starting with the creation of a rapid European entry force able to show the will of the European Union to act as a global strategic partner. When if not now, later would be late.”
But finding a consensus among the 27 EU member states to create such a force is not an easy task. European countries on the border with Russia often oppose the idea of autonomy, for instance Poland and the Baltic nations. EU heavyweight Germany is also a strong supporter of using NATO for security operations and keeping the U.S. defense umbrella in Europe.
However, there was no opposition to the idea supported by Borrell of creating a transnational standby force of 5,000 troops, the EU official said.
The EU is already endowed with rapid reaction teams - so-called battlegroups - made up of about 1,500 personnel. But they have never been used in major crises, and the bloc doesn’t deploy EU missions to active conflict zones.