New Challenges for the German Security Policy - IFSH

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European Parliament, Brussels April 26, 2006 The group of visitors had the opportunity to meet the Vice-President of the European Parliament Mrs. Dr. Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann and to talk with her about current problems and challenges of the Parliament and of the European Union. Dr. Kaufmann welcomed the group in a conference room and introduced herself and her major activities as a Vice- President of the European Parliament. She started her political career in the German party “Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus”(PDS) and was a member of the PDS Executive in the period 1991-1993 and 2000- 2002. In addition Mrs. Dr. Kaufmann was a Federal Vice- Chair of PDS between 1993 and 2000. She had an observer status at the European Parliament in the period 1991-1994 and later on in 1999 she became a member of it as a deputy of the Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left. Dr. Kaufmann was also member of three core delegations and respective commissions: Convention for the Charter of Human Rights of the EU, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament delegation (2000) and Constitutional convention (2002-2003). Mrs. Kaufmann pointed out the relevance of the work of the Constitutional Convention and expressed her personal disappointment with the two refusals of the European Constitution in France and in the Netherlands. She offered various possible explanations and explained the resulting dilemma for the EU. The Vice-President did not support the general redefinition of the content of the Constitution since this will take another couple of years to be completed, because the constitution already reflects a lot of bargaining, compromise and “package deals”. She stressed the importance of the EU Constitution for the future of Europe. She also outlined the shortcomings of EU’s visa and data security policy. She saw no chance for Russia in the near future to enter the European Union. Concerning the CIA-Committee of the EU Parliament, Dr. Kaufmann revealed that there were several cases of abduction of European citizens through the US CIA-agents and made clear that the EU Parliament would undertake a thorough investigation about it. Alexander Tsukev, Qin Yunfeng European Commission, Brussels April 26, 2006 Mrs. Trautmann from the external speaker team provided us with a warm welcome and an introduction to the European Commission. She started with the challenges of work at the Commission and therefore, gave us an interesting insight into daily life at the Commission. Apart from the many languages present at the Commission, cultural diversity plays an important role – creating challenges and making work more interesting at the same time. Responding to questions raised by the group, Mrs. Trautmann explained the role of interpreters and translators at the EU institutions. Another aspect raised by the group was the chance of employment at the European Commission. Here Mrs. Trautmann spoke freely about the enrollment process and the difficulties for applicants without working experience. 10
In the following, she presented the work of the European organs. It is difficult to actually define the EU, for it is neither a state nor a loose federation of states. In terms of economics, the EU is more intertwined than the United States and Canada; in terms of politics though it is far away from forming a unity. Nevertheless, no market can survive without political and legal foundations and thus, the EU politics are more and more touching rather sensitive areas of national politics and sovereignty. Therefore, the constant balancing between state and EU interests is the main conflict the EU institutions have to manage. The European Council is representing the interests of the member states, whereas the European Parliament represents the European people. The Commission takes care of the interests of the EU. It is not surprising that sometimes all the three institutions are working on the same topics – according to their competences and interests. Mrs. Trautmann then concentrated on the Commissioners: first, the EU Parliament needs to approve the Commissions president and then the national governments present their candidate to the Parliament. The Parliament can only approve or disapprove the Commission as a whole. Although the candidates are selected by their national governments, it is important to note that they are expected to act independently – integrity towards the EU is considered their most important asset. Manipulations of commissioners by their governments are unlikely for the system and the fear of bad reputation are widely preventing this. In the end, the discussion dealt with the current Commission and the problems and challenges it is facing. Speaker: Ms. Daniela Tidten, CFSP and ESDP – New Developments Ms. Tidten introduced the topic of Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) by talking about different military and civilian crisis management operations which have been organised under ESDP. Under ESDP, which is a part of CFSP belonging to the EU’s second pillar, the European military Committee (EUMC), the European Military Staff (EUMS) as well as the Committee for Civilian aspects of management (CIVCOM) develop positions which are then forwarded to the Political and Security Committee (PSC). The PSC amongst others has the political control and strategic leadership of crisis management operations under the responsibility of the Council. Crisis management and conflict prevention are also been worked on in the Commission. The “grey area” of competence between Council and Commission needs to be considered as a problem. However, the Commission, but not the Council is supposed to be responsible when EU-law provides a legal basis for Commission action. The Commission administers the budget of CFSP. This increased noticeably in 2006 to 102,3 Million Euros. But compared to the Commissions Budget on External Relations of 7 billion Euros the financial budget is relatively small. The Commission is also active in election observation as a tool of crisis prevention. The recent observation missions have been sent to Africa and Latin America. The EU moreover cooperates with other organisations in this field. They share tasks: e.g. there will not be an observation mission sent to a country where the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observed elections. Since the EU is developing military capabilities as part of ESDP the question of competition between EU and NATO is often raised. The EU, with its traditionally strong “soft power” might be creating unnecessary double structures; especially since the Berlin Plus agreement enabled the EU to access NATO capabilities. However, a close cooperation between NATO and EU is also facing problems: when PSC and NATO Council meet, Malta and Cyprus can not take part, since they are not NATO members and NATO is strict on its nondisclosure policy. The forthcoming EU-mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo might be a practical test for ESDP: there have been difficulties with the allocation of troops, but it can not be judged whether or not this mission will be successful, since the date for the elections is still unknown. The EU looks after non-member countries to get involved in EU-missions through e.g. providing French speaking police officers for the Congo mission. Although the European Constitutional Treaty would have eliminated the pillar structure of the EU, 11
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