EU Governments Set Timetable for Initial Plan to Strengthen Defence Capabilities

European Defence Agency, BRUSSELS: The EDA Steering Board today agreed a roadmap and a timetable to produce a comprehensive Capability Development Plan (CDP), which will help EU governments identify the key capability areas that they must work together to develop to meet the security threats of the future, and to target possible areas for collaboration to deliver the necessary capabilities. 
 
The meeting of senior defence planners from the 26 EU governments participating in the European Defence Agency asked for an initial element of the CDP to be delivered early next year and a full draft of the plan to be ready for the Steering Board to review next July. 
 
“We have now clearly set out what we want and when we want it by,” said Lo Casteleijn, who chaired the meeting on behalf of Javier Solana, the Head of the Agency. 
 
“The CDP must deliver ‘actionable conclusions’: agreed capability development priorities, initial action plans and identified cooperative opportunities, which participating Member States may choose to pursue individually or in combinations inside or outside the EDA environment,” he added. 
 
The work on the CDP builds on the EDA’s Long-Term Vision report of last year, which set out possible contexts for EU crisis-management operations under the European Security and Defence Policy in 2020 and beyond – and described the sort of military and other capabilities which would be required to carry them out effectively. The CDP will make that analysis more specific and thus more useable, identify priorities and areas for collaboration and give guidance to industry. 
 
The four work strands of the CDP, led by the EDA and the EU Military Committee, involve identifying shortfalls from existing goals, doing capability studies on key issues to develop the LTV guidance, building a database of current national defence plans and programmes, and drawing lessons from current experience for future capability needs. 
 
The Steering Board said the CDP would not be a supranational military equipment or capability plan replacing national defence plans and programmes, but would support national decision-making. It should ensure that emerging technology opportunities influence capability development and provide a focus for R&T activity and investment, thus helping to strengthen the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base by making clear to industry what will be needed in the future. 
 
On other issues, the Steering Board welcomed the launch of a new 5 nation – Spain, Italy, Germany, France, and Sweden – collaboration effort on personal equipment for infantrymen, aiming at increasing interoperability and commonality of this increasingly high-tech equipment in the next decade. Three further nations – Poland, Finland and Austria – expressed their interest in joining the programme. 
 
The Steering Board also agreed to commission a report – to be written by an expert known as a “Wise Pen” – on a European approach to Network Enabled Capabilities. Defence Ministers have already agreed that “Network-enabled capability must be fundamental development priority for ESDP operations”. 
 
The concept paper will outline the aims, the required capabilities and how these capabilities could be delivered, address the civil and the military dimension ESDP operations, and propose high level guidance. It will focus in particular on how to create greater capacities in bringing all necessary civilian resources to bear in crises and on enabling the best possible situational awareness and deployment of assets and capabilities in-theatre. 
 
The meeting also considered a series of reports on strategic lift, focusing on how to address the known shortfalls in the capacity to rapidly transport military equipment and forces to EU operations. The EDA reported that the situation would have to be addressed by using a combination of military transport, assured civilian contracted capability and a more efficient approach to the spot market. 
 
It also recommended setting up a project team with government representatives to look into possible combinations of air and sea transport, including new “fast ship” capabilities.