The meeting place is known, the European Christian Democrats use hall 3C 50 for their political group meetings in Brussels. Also this Monday afternoon, the occident is being defendedthere, but this time, overarchingany political group.

Amongst others, it contains the following points:

"11. Recognises the significant progress made in expanding the military capabilities of the Union and, in particular, the importance of the Berlin Plus Framework agreed with NATO.

17....as regards the planning for future EU mixed civil/military missions....urges that...to draw upon...the passion and enthusiasm of younger individuals;

28. Notes that the greatest threat to the coherence and the success of the ESS remains the possible lack of sufficient budgetary resources made available across the entire spectrum of EU policies and instruments;...demands that this point not be forgotten within the framework of the current negotiations concerning the Future Financial Perspective for 2007-2013;

29. Emphasises, nonetheless, its strongly held view that the continued separation of financing for common costs in civil operations through the budget of the Union from those with military or defence character outside the Union budget will prove increasingly untenable given the fact that missions conducted within the framework of CFSP will be increasingly mixed in nature as evidenced by the establishment of the Civil/Military Cell;

30. ...notes, in particular, the problems that current tendering procedures create regarding organisation of rapid actions within the ESDP; therefore urges the Commission to undertake a thorough examination regarding special procedures or exemptions for future ESDP measures and operations within the Financial Regulation;

35. Encourages the new European Defence Agency to examine the possibilities for cooperation with NATO in the area or armaments;

36. Takes note of the complementary nature of certain policies and programmes of NATO and the EU; encourages both parties to examine how these programmes and policies can more effectively serve to mutually reinforce each other;

40. Salutes the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe as an important basis for pursuing the ESS and its ongoing development;

41. Urges the Council and the Commission to undertake immediately the necessary efforts to integrate their activities in a spirit of cooperation prior to the final ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe;"

In the explanatory statement to his report, in addition to other things, the Social Democrat Kuhnewrote:

"Another significant step towards this deadline Goal was the formal adoption of the statue of the European Defence Agency on 12 July 2004, as foreseen in the Constitutional Treaty. Through the future activities if this Agency, the Union should - in principle - not only benefit in further developing its defence capabilities in the fieldof crisis management, but also in bringing about a rationalisation of research and development costs within the Member States and, in the long run, help to contributeto the creation of a European armaments market. At this point in its development however, attention should be drawn not only to the essential failures of previous European armament cooperation agreements and agencies to bring about more value, but also to criticism within the defence industry, that the current budget allotted to this agency - as well as to funding for armaments research within the Union's Research Framework programme - remains insufficient for achieving the goals desired. Indeed, if the Agency is to truly have any real benefit to the Union, it must be empowered to actively undertake efforts to being about long-term co-operation going beyond the short-term capabilities of Headline Goal 2010."

"As regards relations with NATO, co-operation and complimentarity are the key words...Another Example of co-operation could be in the area of armaments via the new European Defence Agency."

"With the promulgation of the Constitutional Treaty, the EU has solid basis for pursuing the ESS. ...That having been said, the Constitutional Treaty has particular shortcomings in the area of parliamentary accountability (failure to extend current Community procedures to CFSP within the treaty) and the failure to remedy the issue of transparent budgeting (joint costs for ESDP-military operations remain funded through subsidiary budgets or start-up funding derived from the Member States' budgets rather then the Community's). Your rapporteur regrets these omissions and canonly hope that they will be remedied at the nearest opportunity."In the debate, only one deputy seriously seems to resents the report. Hepoints out that even for experts, the actual volume of the financial means already employed for military use in the EU remains unclear.A planned special fund will make the monitoring of this financial flow even more difficult”.

Whereas the committee president Karl von Wogau (CDU) underlines that it was "extremely useful" that the rapporteur was in earlier years able to gather a lot of experience in budgetary matters as a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control. As the last speaker, Helmut Kuhne, having just been praised in such a fashion, says: "I feel that most of the points" mentioned before by his colleges, "are in need of more precision". "As regards the NATO, I recommend the Committee to make a statement concerning this point, also because staff comes from this sector." And finally, he demands that "one should not adopt a text that bristles with borderline neuroses."

The Kuhne report was adopted in the Committee on March 16th and should be voted in the plenary session of the European Parliament in April 2005.  

Nobody can dare to say later that they didn’t know…

ETI-press release, January 17, 2005

The original document at full length