Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-19-Speech-3-274"
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"en.20031119.10.3-274"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is no coincidence if, on the eve of the vote on the resolution prepared by our estimable fellow MEP, Mr Queiró, we are able, as he has just reminded us, to share his delight at the announcement last Monday of the decision by the External Relations Council to create the European Defence Agency and to ask a team responsible for establishing this Agency to propose the relevant legal, institutional and financial arrangements.
Thanks to the impact of the Iraq crisis, we have in fact been able, throughout last year, to see a new convergence between Parliament’s, the Commission’s and the Council’s approaches to common foreign and security policy. We may therefore begin to hope that, in this area at least, the progress made by the Convention will not be fundamentally called into question by the expected decisions of the Intergovernmental Conference.
That being said, I include among these instances of progress the resolution to make a better job of spending the funds allocated by the various Member States to their defence, avoiding the present dissipation of effort in terms of research, development and the production of equipment necessary to the modernisation of the armed forces. With this in mind, we must hope, Commissioner, that, as our rapporteur requests, the Commission communication entitled ‘Industrial and Market Issues – Towards an EU Defence Equipment Policy’ will present – as I hope, and am sure, it will do – a favourable framework for increased cooperation.
I think it important to emphasise the fact that the opening up of national markets, which will thus have been made necessary, must be aimed not only at bringing about greater savings – which goes without saying – but also at guaranteeing security of supplies at national and European levels. I am well aware that this is a difficult need to satisfy, particularly for states which – like my own country, France – have so far made sure they retained as much independence as possible in this area. One of the Agency’s priorities should consist of proposing, for this purpose, the necessary changes to the current Treaty provisions.
That being said, let us be very wary of being satisfied with the impact of creating this much-vaunted Agency. Let us not forget that, prior to this, there existed OCCAR – the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation – which, at least to my knowledge, has never been able to be very active, for want of possessing the minimum Community budget needed for it to be effective. Let us be aware, ladies and gentlemen – particularly those of you in the Committee on Budgets – that, if we wish to progress beyond vague desires, we must lose no time in reflecting upon these issues and amending the 2004 budget to include the sums required if the Agency’s activities are to take off. Nor must we forget to provide our High Representative with the resources he needs in order to take action since, according to the Council’s proposal, it is he who will assume the direction of the Agency.
I was happy to hear, Commissioner, that, like ourselves, you are convinced of the need to give priority, in the area with which we are concerned, to research and that it is perhaps at this level that we could undertake the type of pilot project you mooted.
In order to give our enlarged Europe the place expected of it on the international scene, it has, finally, to be given the resources for taking action. As we have said, we need, therefore, to make a better job of spending, but we shall also definitely need to spend more. It is not easy for someone with political responsibility to acknowledge this truth, particularly at a time when it is so difficult to balance the budgets. I would therefore take this opportunity to salute the courage of the rapporteur and of all those within the committee who have backed his report by having written, or agreed, that the persistent refusal of many Member States to increase their defence expenditure is in danger of jeopardising the European Union’s military capability and the very coherence of its action within NATO. As I have said before in this House, Mr President and Commissioner, let us not forget the old French adage about false economy, widely heard in pre-Revolutionary France: no money, no Switzerland."@en1
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