The Nordic Countries and the European Security and Defence Policy

6. The impact of EU capability targets andoperational demands on defence conceptsand planningGerrard QuilleI. IntroductionThis chapter provides an overview of the development of the European Securityand Defence Policy by examining two principal drivers and their impact onindividual nations’ defence choices: collective European capability targets andoperational demands. Operational demands were first made at the 1999 HelsinkiEuropean Council under the Helsinki Headline Goal. 1 Capability targetswere set primarily at the 2001 Laeken European Council, where the EuropeanCapability Action Plan (ECAP) was launched. 2 While operational demands precededthe capability targets, the ESDP has since become most heavily focusedon the ‘bottom-up’ capability targets. The operational demands remained, atbest, a generic political commitment until actual demand for two military crisismanagement operations arose in 2003: in the Former Yugoslav Republic ofMacedonia (FYROM) and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).The capability-development process has benefited from conceptual developmentsfollowing from the Helsinki Headline Goal, including new force conceptslike the Rapid Reaction Force and the new battle groups. More generalcapability requirements, such as those defined in the Helsinki Headline Goal forthe European Union as a whole to have up to 60 000 troops deployable within60 days and sustainable for up to one year, have acted largely as a starting pointand framework for discussions on how to rectify capability shortfalls. Thischapter shows that the original operational demands were part of that conceptualframework to support the capability-development process, but also thatsuch targets soon took on a dynamic of their own as a result of real operationsthat in turn inspired new operational concepts (battle groups, standby forces andbridging forces) and planning requirements (the EU Civil–Military PlanningCell due to become operational in December 2005). 31 Council of the European Union, Presidency conclusions, Helsinki, 10–11 Dec. 1999, URL .2 Council of the European Union, Presidency conclusions, Laeken, 14–15 Dec. 2001, URL , Annex I. See also Haine, J.-Y., ‘From Laekento Copenhagen: European defence, core documents’, Chaillot Paper no. 57, EU Institute of SecurityStudies, Paris, Feb. 2003, URL .3 For an overview of early developments in the ESDP see Gnesotto, N., EU Security and DefencePolicy: The First Five Years (1999–2004) (EU Institute of Security Studies: Paris, 2004), URL