Understanding of the EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation Mechanism

By Zheng Chunrong, Fan Yiyang, Tongji University

Understanding of the EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation Mechanism

By Zheng Chunrong, Fan Yiyang, Tongji University

One of the core issues in the security relations between Europe and the United States lies in the relationship of independent security and defense construction between NATO and the European Union (EU). Under the structure of the European security order dominated by NATO, the EU's independence in security and defense construction is limited and its capacity building is chronically inadequate. Against the backdrop of deteriorating internal and external security environment, Brexit and the Trump Administration's adjustment of NATO policy, the 25 EU member countries launched Permanent Structured Cooperation in late 2017. The EU expects to build a strong "European pillar" of NATO and improve its contribution to NATO defense through Permanent Structured Cooperation, so as to coordinate the integration of EU security and defense, and the balanced development of NATO and make the security relations between Europe and the United States mutually interactive.

I. Background of the Establishment of the Permanent Structured Cooperation Mechanism

The collective defense iunder the NATO framework is the core supporting pillar for the EU-U.S. relations, the European Council in June 1999 in Kologne adopted the Declaration on Strengthening the Common European Policy in Security and Defense, so the accompanied matter is how EU could balance its defense policy and the relations with NATO. EU and NATO established strategic partnership in 2002. The Lisbon Treaty in effect as of December 2009 becomes a composition of the EU common foreign and defense policy (CSFP), but particularly emphasizes coordinated concert between the EU CSFP and the collective defense obligations under the NATO framework.1In short, the EU CSFP is not freed from the NATO dominated position in the European security structure.

In recent years, be it EU, or EU members, both are raising voices for upgrading the EU strategic independence. In July 2016, the German-France Defense and Security Commission in line with Article 42 and Article 46 of the EU Treaty launched the permanent structured cooperation (PESCO) at the German-France joint cabinet meeting, and drew a .basic plan for this cooperation machenism.2The permanent structured cooperation mechanism EU officially implements in December 2017 is viewed as a landmark event. However, there are several unanswered questions as follows: to what extent can it help EU to upgrade its strategic independence, can it free EU from dependence on NATO, so as to reshape the security relations between EU and the United States?

For a long time after the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, the three major members of Britain, France and Germany could not reach consensus on the goals and means of the common security and defense of the European Union, plus the impact of the financial crisis and European debt crisis, reduction of defense budget by the EU members, etc. the common security and defense has not been greatly developed. A series of hot issues since 2016 force EU to make changes.

Munich Security Conference ( MSC) President W. Ischinger believes that the year 2016 is the turning point for the trans-Atlantic security order in the post-Cold War, because the common policy in security and defense of the European Union needs to respond to new changes, Trump changing policy, EU integration setbacks, challenges to freedom and democracy, etc.3-Thus the permanent structured cooperation mechanism came into being.

(1) The deteriorating internal-external security situation in EU with the long-term underdevelopment of security and defense capabilities

Since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, EU-Russia relations dropped to a freezing point. Russia's hybrid-warfare strategy plus traditional military threats mixed up with information warfare and propaganda warfare pose greater challenges to the defensive capabilities of NATO and the EU.4The EU hard power is inadequate to balance Russia, which becomes obvious. As far as the internal security situation of the EU is concerned, over 3.2 million asylum seekers were seeking refuge in Europe from the years 2015 to 2017. The accompanying terrorist attacks have made the internal security situation of EU increasingly serious. Meanwhile, EU is facing double challenges of internal refugee resettlement and external refugee control.

So, the Global Strategy 2016 no longer takes promotion of democratization and regime-change as the goal for countries in periphery and the world, but builds resilient countries and societies in the small and large periphery to ensure EU security. In sharp contrast to the deterioration of the security situation, the EU's common security and defense policy is underdeveloped. According to data, among 22 EU and NATO members, only 4 countries have defense budget up to the standard, i.e. equivalent to 2% of GDP. Defense facilities and equipments are short of interoperability, though the total defense budget amounts to 1/2 of the U.S. budget, yet, its operational capability only yields 1/10. The general inadequate defense budget and the incompatible equipment systems of EU member states also require the common policy in security and defense of the European Union to be put on the agenda and build the EU's military coordination capacity and decrease its operational costs urgently.

2) Britain's Brexit brings window of opportunity to EU's security and defense advancement

An overall view is that the Brexit will unlock the process for EU independent defense. Firstly, in the absence of British participation, the overall defensive capacity of the EU will decline, since Brexit will leave 12% shortage for the EU contributions, Britain’s arms R&D accounts for 11% and it is also one of the 5 EU countries with military commanding centers. At the same time, without Britain, the EU will face the risk of further marginalization in NATO, and the asymmetric relationship between the EU and NATO will become more prominent. Secondly, Britain played a bigger role in resisting the common policy in security and defense of the European Union. For instance, it opposed the increase of European Defense Agency budget, etc. It is also a firm Atlantisist, a U.S. tool to balance European countries to promote European integration, and firmly against the linkage between EU defense and NATO. Since Britain no longer enjoys the legal status of interfering in EU affairs after its withdrawal from the EU, the influence of this special relationship between Britain and the United States on the EU will be weakened, thus reducing the resistance from Britain and the other side of the Atlantic to promote the integration of security and defense policies. So 4 days after the Britain’s referendum, French and German defense ministers changed the common policy in security and defense of the European Union into EU internal comprehensive, real and reliable defense initiative on 12 September 2016.5

(3) The impact of Trump Administration and its adjustment of NATO policy

The U.S. isolationism concerning European security affairs started with the Obama Administration, major structural changes in security relations between Europe and the United States emerged, which is reflected in the following. The Obama Administration adopted a "behind-the-scene leadership" policy on European security affairs, and tried to avoid direct intervention into the European geo-political conflicts. Secondly, The Obama Administration requested the EU to increase defense budget to stop taking a free ride regarding EU security affairs. After Trump came to power, this tendency of "isolationism" went to extreme. In Trump's view, the commitment of the United States to the collective defense of NATO members should not be a natural obligation, but a "product" of NATO members sharing defense expenditures. Secondly, Trump links security issues to trade issues and threatens to impose tariffs on German cars exported to the United States if it fails to meet the 2% of GDP for defense spending. In short, the security assurance of the United States on NATO is more on the diplomatic lips rather then real performance, even though its military input still increases. For example, the Trump Administration raises the sum for European Reassurance Initiative to US$4.8 billion for 2018 fiscal year from US$3.4 billion for 2017. In short, EU recognizes that the U.S. security assurance is highly uncertain and unpredictable, and in the context of American First, EU needs more "hard power" as a bargaining capital with the United States in order to defend its core interests when necessary.

II. Contents and Characteristics of the Permanent Structured Cooperation Mechanism

On December 11, 2017, the Permanent Structured Cooperation was officially launched at the 25 EU Foreign Ministers' Conference.6On March 6, 2018, the European Union Council adopted the first group of 17 cooperation projects and their respective national and action roadmaps. and on November 19, 2018 the second group of 34 cooperation projects in 6 categories. The Articles 42, Article 46 and Additional Protocol 10 of the EU Treaty lay the legal basis and guiding principle for the Permanent Structured Cooperation: So the Permanent Structured Cooperation" is an ambitious, binding and inclusive European legal framework for investing in the field of security and defense for the EU territory and its citizens. The participating member states agree to fulfill their "ambitious and more binding common commitments", including periodically and substantially increasing defense budgets to achieve agreed goals, investing 20% of all defense expenditures in defense, increasing joint and cooperative strategic defense capability projects, and allocating about 2% of defense expenditure to defense research and technology, and establish a review mechanism for the above commitments.7

Binding force

The binding force of the Permanent Structured Cooperation is mainly embodied in its audit procedure. Each year, the participating member states must submit a National Implementation Plan to other member states, EU External Action Agency and EU Defense Agency and reporting on how it contributes to the implementation of commitments. The binding force of Permanent Structured Cooperation makes it different from the former loose and temporary bilateral or mini-multilateral security and defense cooperation among member states, and makes the "common" position of EU security and defense more prominent.

Inclusiveness

The inclusiveness of the Permanent Structured Cooperation is reflected in the independent allocation of ability resources of member countries. Firstly, the Permanent Structured Cooperation" is open to all member states that can fulfill their commitments under Additional Protocol X to the EU Treaty. Secondly, member states decide their own projects according to their abilities and willingness, so member states retain the decision-making on how to allocate capacity resources flexibly and effectively. In addition, the Permanent Structured Cooperation also allows participating countries to invite third countries to participate in projects that can bring them "substantial value added", and the third countries enjoy no decision-making,8which in fact leaves policy leeway for cooperation between Britain and the EU under the framework of Permanent Structured Cooperation" after Brexit.

Characteristics of the Permanent Structured Cooperation

The Permanent Structured Cooperation reflects the attribute of "multi-speed Europe" (also known as "two-speed Europe"), i.e. those who are willing and able can do more in specific fields.9Of the first group of 17 projects, 25 member countries have different level of participation, among which core members countries and Southern European countries are more active. The first 5 member countries that participate more projects are as follows: Italy participates in 15 projects, Spain 12 projects, Greece 9 projects, France 9 projects, German 7 projects, and Holland 7 projects. German leads 5 projects, Italy 4 projects, Greece and France each leads 2 projects. The participation of EU member states in the second group of projects has generally declined. Except for France that participates in 12 projects in the second group of projects, all other member states participate in less projects. In accordance with the information released by the EU Council, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxemburg and Portugal participate in zero project in the second group of projects. In the modular setting of the Permanent Structured Cooperation, each project presents a different arrangement and combination of volunteer configuration.

The Permanent Structured Cooperation is a flexible integration path resulted from compromises of member states. Firstly, EU core member states still compete for discourse on what strategic culture of the EU security and defense to shape. France intends to build a capable and close cooperation form, so as to work in the direction of establishing European Army, However, Germany does not hope to see competition of defense cooperation between EU and non-EU.10So as a compromise to France, the Permanent Structured Cooperation only provides the participating countries in the projects with project veto. Secondly, Central and Eastern European countries, especially EU members close to Russia view the traditional geo-political conflicts provoked by Russians the No.1 security threat for the Europe continent, which makes them more rely on NATO for security protection while less likely to build independent EU defense forces.

From the content of the first group of projects, the Permanent Structured Cooperation is currently focused on the arms cooperation (research & development and procurement) and European defense technological and industrial base, with particular emphasis on standardization and formalization of the defense industry. This focus will help to remove the constraints imposed by the disunity of arms specifications on the integration of defense, and enhance coordination of the actions of participating countries. At the same time, there is little need to worry about duplicating NATO's structure in arms project cooperation, and it is easier for participating countries to reach consensus on their goals. As far as the review procedure is concerned, the Permanent Structured Cooperation adopts a flexible review mechanism. As the foundation of the Permanent Structured Cooperation, the review of the annual review mechanism of defense cooperation coordination relies on voluntary action with "peer evaluation" by member states.

III. The relationship between Permanent Structured Cooperation mechanism and NATO

As the Permanent Structured Cooperation is launched, the EU and its major member states have great expectations, while the United States shows some doubts about the new mechanism. So the competition and cooperation in the relations existing between EU and NATO will become more obvious. In the process of deepening and expanding the European security and defense integration, the overlapping institutions are in place, which is asymmetric and non-overlap due to different focus on strategic culture, action program, institutional structure, etc. In order to avoid violation of the overlapping institutions between EU and NATO,11EU has a deep-rooted dependence psychologically on NATO, which is difficult for EU to improve institutional arrangements and core capability-building.12

Objectively speaking, from the perspective of resource acquisition, the Permanent Structured Cooperation constitutes a potential competitive relationship with NATO. The resources invested by Member States in the Permanent Structured cooperation can be invested in NATO, the United Nations or any other bilateral or multilateral cooperation mechanism, which may aggravate the overlap mechanisms between NATO and EU. But for the EU, the importance and necessity of building a "European pillar" in NATO far exceeds a set of security mechanisms parallel to NATO. In the case of declining U.S. concerns about European defense, EU must improve its ambition and operational capability to enhance its voice in NATO with its real military strength. At the same time, NATO has special geopolitical significance for EU. To establish a truly reliable EU defense needs the support of NATO allies, and to maintain the relationship with NATO allies, it is necessary for EU to enhance the adaptability of its defense capabilities to NATO.

The Permanent Structured Cooperation is in line with NATO's capacity-building objectives, so it can play a complementary role in NATO's capacity-building. Among them, the most direct manifestation is the commitment of participating countries to increasing defense expenditure and strengthening the defense industry. This means that EU has taken the initiative to raise the level of defense sharing, which has long been criticized by the United States, so that the United States can invest its strategic resources at its disposal in other regions. In addition, the Permanent Structured Cooperation projects can be embedded in the process of NATO capacity-building to improve the long-term insufficient contribution of EU in NATO's mission. For example, military mobile capacity-building projects of the Permanent Structured Cooperation currently draws participation of the largest number of countries', which helps to eliminate physical and procedural obstacles faced by EU military operations and improve EU military mobility and efficient deployment of military forces. For emerging defense areas such as cyber security, the Permanent Structured Cooperation can provide a framework for cooperation between NATO and EU, and enhance consistency and coordination between the two sides in the initial stage.

The Permanent Structured Cooperation gives EU a practical grasp and relatively clear action steps to push its common security and defense policy, but it does not seek to change NATO's dominant position in the European security architecture, while strengthening the "European pillar" of NATO by making up for its own shortcomings. EU stresses that the Permanent Structured Cooperation complements NATO's capacity-building and interacts with the NATO resources to make the "strategic partnership" between EU and NATO more sustainable, thus alleviating the impact of Brexit and the shift of US strategic focus on EU defense.

In the long run, the Permanent Structured Cooperation will add new vitality to the development of transatlantic security relations, rather than destroy or subvert this relations. However, the progress of EU defense capability-building under the Permanent Structured Cooperation mechanism is still lagging behind the expansion of current security threats. The limited "strategic autonomy" makes it difficult for EU to truly "command its destiny in its own hands". EU neither intends to nor is unable to reshape the security relationship between Europe and the United States, but hopes to optimize the allocation of responsibilities and capacity contribution in this security structure so as to make the security relationship of EU develop in a benign and sustainable direction.

(Edited excerpts of the article in International Politics, N0.4, 2019)

1. “Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union”, Official Journal of the European Union, C326/47, 26.10.2012, p.275.

2. Bundesministerium der Verteidigung, “Deutschland und Frankreich vertiefen militaerische Zusammenarbei”, http://www.bmvg.de/de/aktuelles/ Deutschland-und-Frankreich-vertiefen- militaerische –Zusammenarbei-11280, last accessed on 2 October 2018.

3.Tobias Bunde and Wolgang Ischinger, “European Security Policy at the End of the Post-Cold War Era”, Global Policy, Vol. 8, Supplement 4, 2017, pp.27-28.

4. “Defend Me maybe”, The Economist, http://www.economist.com/news/europe/201702771-donald-trumpcasually-undermines-worlds-most-important-alliance-defend-me-maybe, last accessed on 2 October 2018.

5. Erneuerung der GSVP-Hin zu einerumfassenden, realistischen und glaubwurdigen Verteidigung in der EU” Deutsch-Fran ziosissche Verteidigungsinitiative vom 12 September 2016.

6. Those that are not participants are Denmark (NATO member), Malta (non-NATO member), as well as United Kingdom

7.” Notification on the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO)to the Council and to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy”, http://wwwconsilium.europa.eu/media/31511/171113-pesco-notification.pdf, last accessed on 15 October 2018.

8. “Council Decision Establishing the List of Projects to be Developed under PESCO”, Brussels, 1 March 2018.

9. European Commission, “White Paper on the Future of Europe-Relations and Scenarios for the EU27 by 2025”, COM(2017)2025, 2017.

10. Alice Billon-Galland and Martin Quencez, “European Intervention Initiative: The Big Easy”, Berlin Policy Journal, https://berlinpolicy journal.com/ european -intervention-initiative-the -big-easy, last accessed on 2 October 2018.

11. Stephanie C. Hofmann, “Overlapping Institutions in the Realm of International Security: The Case of NATO and ESDP”, Perspectives on Politics, Vol.7, No.1, 2009, pp.45-52.

12. Zhang Lichun, Xu Qiyu, “Old Problems, New Motive Force and an Opportunity Window to European Common Defense”, European Studies, No. 6, 2017, pp121-122.