The European Defence Agency And Ireland

The Government is understandably anxious to respond to the electorate’s concerns on the Lisbon Treaty. It is even more anxious to maximise any possible ‘yes’ vote in another referendum. However, it is in serious danger of damaging Irish interests and undermining the declared values that underpin Irish foreign policy, if it abandons Ireland’s place in the European Defence Agency (EDA). The political arguments are well known. By pulling out of any EU policy area, a state is potentially marginalised, looses influence, and is certainly less capable of pursuing its interests and values. Denmark opted out of European security and defence cooperation some years ago, and has paid precisely this price, according to a number of academic and policy studies over the last few years. In the case of the European Defence Agency, an Irish ‘opt-out’ is even more short-sighted. The European Defence Agency was set up under the Irish EU presidency in 2004. Its purpose is clear. It is designed to improve the military capacities of participating states so that they can better support “humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking”. These are the treaty-defined functions of the EU’s security and defence policy. In the absence of any track-record, it was perhaps possible to argue that this policy might result in all sorts of neo-colonial and quasi imperialist exploits across the world. In fact, in less than six years, the EU has successfully undertaken 23 overseas defence and security missions across three continents. Less than a third of these have involved the use of military forces. Virtually every single one of these missions has been endorsed by the UN and Irish personnel have participated in 15 of them. Each of these missions has contributed meaningfully to international peace and security, and the Irish contribution to them has been a positive one. Since 2004, the EDA’s role has only slowly developed, but it too has a track record that we can review. With an annual budget of about 30 million euro it has undertaken very specific projects. It is helping to develop small remote-controlled aircraft which are invaluable to troops who need to know where potentially hostile forces are located, or where best to direct aid and assistance over difficult terrain. It is pursuing better armoured vehicles for the transport of troops in danger zones and it is trying to identify means whereby we can provide enough helicopters to deliver troops safely when and where they are needed. Also among its priority projects: technologies for better landmine disposal, for the detection of improvised explosive devices and better detection of chemical, radiological, and biological weapons. The Irish troops that we have sent to dangerous places around the world need this equipment too. By designing such equipment together, by tendering for such equipment together, by manufacturing such equipment together and by buying such equipment together, European governments can significantly improve their military capacity at a potential net saving to the taxpayer. It should also be noted that all of this has a potentially direct and positive impact on employment, industrial development and research and technology. Enterprise Ireland,

for example, should be fully engaged within the EDA to ensure that Irish companies have the information and access necessary to compete for each and every contract that results and to be included as part of each and every supply chain that develops. A critical issue raised by those that have expressed their concerns about the EDA is the morality of participation. While the fears may be genuine, they are misplaced. In which of the above-mentioned EDA projects would it be immoral for Irish companies to participate, immoral for Irish workers to be employed or immoral for the Irish government to support? Nonetheless, if we still have concerns, then the very last veto that we should ever abandon is the veto that we now hold in the EDA. An opt-out means throwing that veto away. It means cutting Ireland out of the decisions on the EDA budget, out of the decisions on which projects the EDA will pursue and out of the decisions which will determine the future shape of the Union’s security and defence policy and the EDA’s role therein. Within the EU – and indeed internationally through the UN – we are only making the weakest and most hesitant start towards effective regulation of the arms trade. This is an arms trade which has contributed to hundreds of thousand of deaths and millions of injuries in more than 50 conflicts around the world since 1990. As of this writing, most states are even unwilling to record publicly what they sell and to whom. There is potential, with concerted political action, to strengthen the EDA’s existing agenda for more transparency in national military procurement and to develop effective, high standards on the sale of military and dual-use goods overseas on an EU-wide basis. Will that political constituency be stronger or weaker if Ireland abandons its seat at the EDA? It requires stronger Irish engagement with the EDA – not less. If we have doubts about the commitment, strength or ability of the Irish politicians who sit at that table, then we must campaign and vote accordingly. In any event, an opt-out from the EDA may be easy politics, it may also look like cheap politics but it is most certainly bad politics. Ben Tonra is the Jean Monnet Professor of European Foreign, Security and Defence Policy at the UCD School of Politics and International Relations. He is the author of Global Citizen and European Republic, Irish Foreign Policy in Transition (Manchester University Press)