ANALYSIS:Given Ireland's No to Lisbon, there are calls to opt out of all or part of the EU security and defence pact, writes Jamie Smyth,Europe Correspondent
THE COLLAPSE of communism and war in the former Yugoslavia prompted EU states to develop a European common foreign and security policy in the early 1990s. And when the union proved powerless to stop Serbian paramilitaries massacring 8,000 Bosnians in Srebrenica in 1995, EU leaders decided to create the operational arm capable of implementing such a power, the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).
The framework was agreed at the Franco-British Saint-Malo summit in December 1998, a text later adopted by EU heads of state at the Cologne European Council in 1999. The Nice Treaty created a Political and Security Committee (PSC) to oversee ESDP and deploy troops, police and judges on EU missions.
In 2004 EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana drew up the European Security Strategy, which set out a doctrine for the ESDP based on conflict prevention, providing security in Europe's neighbourhood, and promoting multilateralism in line with the UN charter.
The link between the ESDP and the UN is often overlooked despite the commitment spelled out in the European Security Strategy to "strengthen the UN, equipping it to fulfil its responsibilities and to act effectively", as "a European priority".
"Every single ESDP mission has been mandated by the UN, which desperately needs the type of well-trained and well-equipped peacekeepers capable of rapidly deploying to secure an area," says Daniel Keohane, analyst at the European Institute for Security Studies. "It is often more efficient for the UN to subcontract out its peacekeeping missions to the EU. We have seen this model in Chad where 3,600 troops are deployed."
Every week PSC ambassadors from EU states (Marie Cross is Ireland's current ambassador) meet in Brussels to monitor the 20 or so ESDP missions that have so far been launched by the union. Every EU state, except Denmark which has completely opted out of the ESDP, has the right to veto the launch of an EU mission.
Currently the EU is engaged in ESDP missions in Chad, Georgia, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Ramallah in the Middle East. It is also planning to launch its first ever naval mission off the coast of Africa to protect commercial shipping from Somali-based pirates.
Since January 1st, 2007, the union has also kept two standing battlegroups, which are rapid reaction contingents of at least 1,500 troops, on alert at full operational capacity to deploy to crisis regions. The Defence Forces participated in the Nordic battlegroup, which contains soldiers from Sweden, Finland, Norway and Estonia and was put on alert in the first half of 2008. No battlegroup has yet been deployed to a crisis, although there are calls from NGOs for the EU to deploy one in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The EU military committee, which is the highest military body within the union, also sits in Brussels currently under the chairmanship of French general Henri Bentégeat. The committee is staffed by the permanent representatives, who act on behalf of states' chiefs of defence. They offer advice and recommendations to the ambassadors on the political and security committee. The Irish representative is Brig Gen Liam MacNamee.
The EU military headquarters, which is based about a mile away from the council of ministers, has also recently developed its own operations centre capable of commanding a mission from Brussels. Up until last year European security missions relied on five available operational headquarters in France, Britain, Germany, Italy and Greece.
One other possibility existed under the so called "Berlin-plus" agreement with Nato, which allows the EU to make use of its command and control options located at supreme allied command at Mons, Belgium. This is the headquarters used for the EU operation ALTHEA, which enables European forces to operate in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Some 19 EU states are currently members of Nato and co-operation between the two organisations has developed since 2001. As well as offering to share facilities they also can co-operate to combat terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. They are currently working towards concerted planning of capabilities development.
Ireland is also a member of the European Defence Agency (EDA), which aims to support member states to improve European defence capabilities in crisis management by: developing defence capabilities; promoting RD; promoting armaments co-operation; and creating a more competitive EU defence industry to lower equipment costs.
In the wake of the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, there are calls for the Government to consider opting out of the ESDP altogether or perhaps certain portions of it to allay citizens' concerns. Withdrawing from the EDA does not require a change to the EU treaties and is a much easier option from a legal perspective than negotiating a full opt-out from the ESDP.
The Government could simply withdraw its membership from the agency, which would prevent Irish representatives from attending meetings and taking part in its initiatives.
Opting out of the ESDP is a legal possibility, although the legally binding protocol cannot be written into the Lisbon Treaty because this would require other member states to re-ratify the treaty. The solution being suggested is to negotiate an intergovernmental agreement - similar to the one Denmark agreed in 1993 after voting No to Maastricht - which could then be embedded in the next EU treaty, most likely to be the Croatian accession treaty in 2010/11.
But as Danish politicians told the Oireachtas subcommittee on the future of Europe, opting out of the ESDP holds serious consequences for defence forces and foreign policy.
An Irish opt-out would mean Ireland could not take part in EU discussions on security and defence policy, veto missions, or send our troops on EU peacekeeping missions. This would undermine Ireland's ability to influence the development of the ESDP while also weakening the country's influence over the EU's developing common foreign policy. The Defence Forces are concerned that a withdrawal from the ESDP could seriously undermine their capacity to take part in future peacekeeping missions, even those mandated and led by the UN.
One further option is a declaration or legal protocol that would offer the public a guarantee there would never be any conscription into an EU army. This should be relatively easy to negotiate as it is unthinkable politically that this would ever occur on a European level.