The new EU cooperation programme should lead to increased investment in security and defence.

After seven long years of hibernation, the European Union's Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) was launched on 11 December, with the aim of achieving greater convergence in security and defence matters, mission statement . The initiative represents a leap forward in the process of European integration, overcoming the period of stagnation and hesitation brought about by the last economic and financial crisis.

Soldiers carrying the flag of the European Union in front of the EU institutions, in 2014 [European Parliament].

article / Manuel Lamela Gallego

The very year in which the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome was commemorated ended with a certain sense of vindication and reaffirmation on the part of the European Union and its member states, having succeeded against all odds in generating investment and cooperation in the areas of security and defence. The implementation of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) is the response to the urgent need for investment in these two areas, a need that the EU has had for decades and that not even the failure in the Balkans managed to address.

We speak of reaffirmation in the face of the evident crisis that the European Union has suffered in recent years, when doubts have been raised about its own continuity. Despite this delicate situation status, the EU has acted with admirable flexibility and has considered its own role on the world stage with the aim of continuing to make a positive difference in the world goal . It is in this context of reflection and change that the launch of PESCO should be framed.

To this recent loss of credibility must be added the collection of 'failures' that the EU has accumulated in generating a common defence strategy. Javier Solana's words in 2003 acknowledging the failure and fracture of the Union in the Iraq crisis management cast a shadow of impotence and ineptitude that the EU has so far been unable to shake off. area The implementation of PESCO represents a great flash of light in Europe's external action, as it demonstrates the unity within the European project in the highly sensitive area of security and defence.   

In this way, and in compliance with the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty, on 13 November, and after several months of insistence by the European committee , 23 Member States signed a notification that represents the first step towards the implementation of Permanent Structured Cooperation. This moment was declared "historic" by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini. This is undoubtedly a turning point in the history of the European Union, since after several decades it has managed to break with the tendency to reduce European cooperation to the sphere of economic integration. PESCO aspires to lay the foundations from which, with truly binding projects, common and shared strategies can be generated that will gradually shape the new Europe of security and defence. In its measure, Permanent Structured Cooperation is positioned like the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) Commission, whose decision-making dimension was one of the pillars for the expansion of European supranationalism into other, more ambitious areas.      

Legal basis

The legal basis for PESCO is found in Articles 42(6) and 46, together with protocol issue 10, of the Lisbon Treaty (2009).

article 42(6): "Member States which fulfil higher military capability criteria and which have made more binding commitments on subject to perform the most demanding tasks will establish permanent structured cooperation on framework of the Union. This cooperation shall be governed by article 46 and shall not affect the provisions of article 43".

If anything should be emphasised about the Permanent Structured Cooperation it is its binding nature, whereby states will be truly bound by their commitments, as we can see from article 46(4): "If a participating Member State no longer fulfils the criteria or can no longer assume the commitments referred to in Articles 1 and 2 of the protocol on permanent structured cooperation, the committee may adopt a decision suspending the participation of that State".

PESCO's lack of influence over state sovereignty is one of its fundamental characteristics. This is clearly reflected in articles 46(5) and 46(6) of the Lisbon Treaty. The first clarifies the steps to be taken by a Member State to leave project: it need only notify committee of its intention to leave withdrawal. The second deals with decision-making within the Permanent Structured Cooperation: decisions will be taken unanimously, in a unanimity constituted by the votes of the representatives of all Member States participating in PESCO.

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On 11 December, the European committee finally decided to launch PESCO, an initiative that Ireland and Portugal joined, bringing the issue membership to 25 countries. This led to the adoption of the first 17 projects on which participating states commit to cooperate and which will be formally adopted by committee in 2018. These projects will cover various areas of European security and defence, such as the training of troops or the standardisation and facilitation of cross-border military transport (the latter of which has been in high demand by NATO in recent years). In addition to this list of projects, it is worth highlighting the commitment of states to steadily and continuously increase defence budgets in real terms. After several years of economic and financial recession in most European states, defence spending falls short of the 2% of GDP agreed at the NATO summit in Wales in 2014. This is undoubtedly one of the most important tasks for PESCO to fulfil in order to continue with a stable development .

The Permanent Structured Cooperation initiative was taken by France, Germany, Spain and Italy, which confirms the functioning of the two-speed Europe, although in the end project has been joined by practically the entire Union, with the only absences being Malta, Denmark (which does not participate in European defence) and obviously the United Kingdom, which is planning to leave in March 2019. It remains to be seen whether this high participation does not jeopardise the initial ambition of project. Although the very nature of PESCO facilitates the coexistence of the two Europes as long as the minimum commitments are met.

The friction that PESCO and NATO may have or the future position that the UK will hold in European defence after its exit from the EU are other questions that PESCO raises. Only its implementation will dispel these uncertainties. Leaving these doubts aside for a moment, what can be said is that Permanent Structured Cooperation opens up a wide horizon and that it is exclusively in the hands of European citizens to take advantage of it.

As the current French Minister of Economics and Finance, Bruno le Maire, says: "Europe is not a certainty, it is a fight".

Bibliography

Council of the EU. (11 December 2017). consilium.europa.eu. Retrieved from Cooperation on subject defence: statement press

Council of the European Union (2017). Legislative acts and other instruments (PESCO), (p. 20). Brussels.

European Union (2009). Treaty of Lisbon. Lisbon, Portugal.

The Council and the High Representative of foreign affairs and security policy (2017). Notification on Permanent Structured Cooperation, (p. 10).