European Diary:Three and a half years after the UN warned of a "reign of terror" in Darfur and potential crimes against humanity, the EU is finally preparing a military intervention writes, Jamie Smyth
In October EU foreign ministers sanctioned a 3,700-strong peacekeeping mission for neighbouring Chad to protect refugee camps housing more than 400,000 Chadian and Sudanese refugees fleeing the slaughter in Darfur.
Ireland has stepped up to the challenge by providing 400 troops, with Lieut Gen Pat Nash leading the force. France, Sweden, Poland and Romania will make up the rest of the mission, which has been welcomed by aid agencies as a first step to stabilising a chronic humanitarian situation developing on the Chad/Darfur border.
Yet eight weeks after politicians gave the green light for the deployment, a shortage of military equipment such as helicopters is still delaying the operation. EU states are expected to finally agree to provide some helicopters tomorrow but the force will not now be fully operational until the spring, raising key questions about EU capabilities.
"EU states are overstretched militarily by deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. They have largely failed to invest adequately in their military forces or to reform armies structured for cold war combat," says Daniel Keohane, analyst with the EU Institute for Security Studies.
"In short, the EU doesn't have the military clout to achieve all that it wants to achieve politically in the world."
A lack of top-end helicopters is causing problems not just for the Chad mission but also for a Nato force fighting in Afghanistan and a proposed UN-African Union military mission in Darfur. There are now serious doubts about this crucial mission's future viability.
The equipment deficit for the Chad mission is so severe that the Government has considered leasing helicopters from Ukraine, and French president Nicolas Sarkozy has considered accepting Russian helicopters. The EU force may also have to be deployed in Chad via Antonov aircraft leased from Ukraine, highlighting that EU armies are woefully short of the necessary tactical air support to undertake overseas missions.
Inadequate defence spending is part of the problem. The EU spends 1.78 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence compared to 3.7 per cent in the US. Ireland, which is increasingly providing troops for overseas missions, spends just 0.7 per cent.
Low defence budgets mean EU states are often loath to risk helicopters in tough missions such as Afghanistan or Chad, or to absorb the cost of maintaining them in difficult conditions.
Member states must also pay the cost of taking part in EU peacekeeping missions while they are reimbursed for taking part in UN missions, a factor that has led to delays and wrangling over the deployment of the Chad mission.
"We certainly need more solidarity and fairness in sharing the burden in both the EU and Nato missions," Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski told The Irish Times. "It is no good having a policy where the more internationalist you are the more out of pocket you are."
There is also too much duplication in EU defence spending. Most EU states still prefer to protect their domestic armaments industry rather than co-ordinate their defence spending and buy from the best suppliers. In 2005 there were 23 different national procurement programmes to buy armoured fighting vehicles, according to the European Defence Agency (EDA), resulting in wasted money and interoperability problems when separate defence forces have to work together on missions abroad.
"It would be hard to identify one area where we have fixed a military capacity shortfall since we agreed the Helsinki headline goals in 1999. In truth, states have made very little discernible progress in achieving them," says Nick Whitney, who stood down as EDA chief executive last month to join the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
The Helsinki goals pledge to increase EU military capabilities by enabling states to rapidly deploy and sustain a force of 60,000 troops in the field for a year - a commitment that requires 180,000 troops to accommodate rest periods.
Yet despite having almost two million personnel under arms, EU states are currently only able to deploy about 100,000 soldiers, a situation which British foreign minister David Miliband said last month was "frankly embarrassing".
Defence analysts point to a cold war mentality in Europe, with some states still relying on conscripted troops rather than professional soldiers.
Often it is the military establishment, which resists reforms that would change their priorities from protecting national territory to taking part in EU missions, says Mr Keohane.
Another key EU weakness is that many states insist on placing caveats on when, where and how their defence forces can fight. For example troops from Germany, France, Italy and Spain in Afghanistan are restricted to taking part in peacekeeping operations rather than military operations.
Irish troops must also wait for UN clearance before deploying abroad on an EU peacekeeping mission under the "triple lock" mechanism, requiring UN, cabinet and Dáil approval.
With an increasingly belligerent Russia on the UN security council, getting new resolutions for Kosovo missions will be difficult, prompting some legal uncertainty.
It is against this background of underfunding, poorly planned spending and a litany of political caveats surrounding troop deployments that EU leaders are pledging that the union will play a more prominent role in world affairs.
But as the delayed mission to Chad proves, political commitment is now needed to make their goal a reality.