European integration accelerates in times of crisis. After 9/11, a pile of proposals were lifted from Commission bins to form the basis for a rush of Justice and Home Affairs legislation. Hungary’s toxic sludge disaster will similarly and equally inevitably add impetus to otherwise unconnected measures on pan-Danubism. From a UK perspective, however, one of the more imminent pressures in 2011 will now be on EU Defence cooperation.
One of the criticisms raised against the Spending Review in the MoD has been that it has been based on a fait accompli, and that there hasn’t been more of a basic debate on what the country’s Defence focus is about.
That perception is somewhat unfair. But in any event, in a new paper for the TaxPayers’ Alliance, at least one aspect gets publically explored. It’s intended as an accompaniment to our definitive paper on the development of the EU’s diplomatic corps – the other half of the CFSP equation – and both carry forewords by senior career personnel who know their craft well. In our new analysis, we detail how the conflict between Brussels and Mons has developed over the last fifty years, and in particular the wild acceleration since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
There will be some in Government who will look at military cutbacks and think that lost effect can be replicated by bolstering EU military association. Our analysis is that this would be a critical mistake of the first order, akin to Belgification. By the same token, the Government’s policy of withdrawing British participation from the European Defence Agency is the right choice both strategically and financially. The report also endorses increased cooperation with the French and other governments on a bilateral basis.
Britain has a tradition of fighting in coalitions. When we did not, such as in the early 1780s, we did not flourish. It is an approach as self-evident as observing that it is as important to wisely pick the associates in your alliance. But if we continue along our recent path towards European military integration, we are in danger of allowing economies in the field to be badly safeguarded by false economies in policy thinking in Whitehall.
