When discussing security it is worth recalling that the European project began with what today we would call "soft security" measures. Prompted by the...

When discussing security it is worth recalling that the European project began with what today we would call "soft security" measures. Prompted by the devastation caused by World War II and the widespread desire for peace and justice, the debate initially concentrated on the need for a new approach to international relations. For federalists meeting in Montreux in 1947 this meant working for a world federation, though some saw the need to rebuild war-torn Europe in a new, federal mould as both more urgent and more likely to achieve early success. Essential guidelines were already available in the Hertenstein proposals drawn up the previous year.
The Hague Congress (1948), chaired by Winston Churchill, set the process in motion. Its task was to lay aside "the petty rivalries of national states" and to "look forward to the development of a harmonious society in Europe"¹. The agreed solution foresaw regular intergovernmental meetings and the drawing up of a Charter of Human Rights - essential after the murderous behaviour of fascist regimes -, plus a Court of Justice, and a European Assembly. These aims were realised in the foundation of the Council of Europe which first tackled the roots of conflict in its Convention on Human Rights, and later extended its work to such ground-level areas as education, local government, and the treatment of minorities. As an intergovernmental organisation it followed the pattern suggested by many earlier political thinkers² and is structurally similar to the League of Nations or, in a later strengthened form, the United Nations.
However, with the sharpening by 1949-50 of the perceived threat from the Soviet Union - they now had the atom bomb - and talk of re-arming Germany sending shivers down the backs of every Frenchman, a more federal arrangement was clearly needed. Thrice during the previous eighty years their two countries had fought each other. To avoid a repetition, France and Germany together with the Benelux countries and Italy now undertook preventative action by agreeing in the Paris treaty of 1951 to place the two key resources on which the armaments industry relied at that time, coal and steel, within a common legislative order administered by common institutions which would include a Court of Justice to rule on disputes.
Its principal aim was "to substitute for age-old rivalries the merging of their essential interests; to create, by establishing an economic community, the basis for a broader and deeper community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts; and to lay the foundations for institutions which will give direction to a destiny henceforward shared"³. On the military side, and roughly in parallel with the Paris Treaty negotiations, agreement was also reached on the establishment of a "hard security" European Defence Community with a common European army. This was torpedoed by the French National Assembly's negative vote. It was a step too far.
Yet the soft security approach was still alive. Economic deprivation had led in the inter-war period to extreme nationalism, populist dictatorships, and war. It was no surprise, therefore, that the six states decided next to merge their interests over a much wider range of economic activities in order to "ensure the development of their prosperity in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations ... thus pooling their resources to preserve and strengthen peace and liberty"⁴. Again progress was achieved by the use of soft security measures to avoid a resurgence of armed conflict between the ex-combatants in western Europe.
The military dimension
Already in 1948, preliminary moves towards establishing a European security structure had been agreed by Britain, France and the Benelux countries in the Brussels Treaty of Economic, Social & Cultural Collaboration and Collective Self-Defence, later renamed the Western European Union. Its military responsibilities were soon to be incorporated within NATO⁵ as part of the Atlantic Alliance's defensive bulwark against Soviet expansion. But by 1992, and against the background of the Yugoslav crisis, the European Community grew increasing aware that its economic success brought with it other responsibilities which it was ill-equipped to handle. The Maastricht reforms of that year therefore endowed the Union some limited competence in the field of Foreign & Security Policy and at the same time declared the Western European Union (WEU) to be "an integral part of the development of the Union"⁶ whose task would be to organise and plan military activities with the stated objective to "preserve peace, and strengthen international security, in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter, ... to promote international cooperation, [and] to develop and consolidate democracy and the rule of law, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms"⁷. Despite these worthy aims, peace in ex-Yugoslavia was only achieved under American leadership.
Nevertheless, the WEU Council of Ministers did succeed in agreeing the basic rules which should govern EU security policy, namely that troops would be deployed only for humanitarian and rescue tasks, peace-keeping tasks, and the use of combat forces in crisis management, including peace making. These so-called Petersberg principles of 1992 were incorporated into later EU treaties⁸ and have been respected. At the time of writing, for example, the EU has six thousand peace-keeping troops in Bosnia. Police missions have also been undertaken in Macedonia and Kinshasa (Congo), with 'rule of law' missions to Georgia, Iraq, and Aceh (Indonesia). EU representatives have also participated in negotiations for a coordinating office for Palestine Police Support. A paper entitled European Security Strategy (December 2003) gives the general policy outlines.
Deployment of armed forces is not without its critics. One commentator has pointed out that the EU's acquisition of "deployable military and civilian capabilities for crisis management operations has been frustratingly slow"⁹. Others feel that an emphasis on military means "will push Europe away from the moral high ground" and that reliance on civilian rather than military power distinguishes the EU from NATO and the US¹⁰. The Commission publishes Country Strategy Papers relating to those areas where help is deemed necessary, but the final decision to act lies solely with the Council - that is, with member states' governments - voting by unanimity, although a state may opt to abstain without blocking common action by the other members. The European Parliament has no say in the decision. Despite all the fine rhetoric there is a clear absence of EU-level democratic control over security policy.
Nor does the EU have its own army. For its operations, often conducted in collaboration with NATO and/or the United Nations, the necessary military units must be supplied by those member states willing and able to take part. Eurocorps, which might one day form the nucleus of a future EU army, is described on its website as "A force for the EU and NATO" and includes participants from Turkey and Canada as well as EU countries. Europe's defence against external aggression still rests with NATO, but that body - highly sophisticated and successful though it is - now undertakes "out of area" operations, such as in Afghanistan, with which the EU might not always collectively agree.
Nineteen EU member states are also members of NATO and, with the Union's increased economic and political influence in the world, a more reasonable balance between Europe and North America, with possibly a revision of the present treaty arrangements, might be expected. Yet to strengthen Europe's voice requires a greater willingness among its member states to respect their existing EU treaty commitment to coordinate their foreign policy and work more coherently together in international organisations such as NATO and the United Nations¹¹.
The internal threat
Since the end of the cold war the main threat comes not from uniformed armies but from international terrorism. This poses a double-headed danger - "double-headed" because the security measures now being hastily introduced are potentially more damaging to democracy than the terrorist attacks in themselves. EU-level agreements under the so-called Pillar Three provisions are strictly inter-governmental with no parliamentary input even where they directly affect individual rights and freedoms. For example, the security services' proposals for the long-term storage of all emails, details of telephone calls, access to bank accounts and credit card dealings could lead - from the best of motives - to a more thoroughly effective police state than ever before, thereby undermining the principles on which the European project is based and constituting a breach of the EU's commitments on human rights.
Soft security
It is time the EU returned to the fundamental principles upon which the European project was founded. Our continent's devastating experience of the ravages of war, most recently repeated in the Balkan conflicts, should have taught us the need to identify the underlying problems and take steps to deal with them before they become too acute. Better control of the arms trade must be the first soft security policy to be put into place. The Draft Constitutional Treaty provided for an improvement in "military capabilities" and the establishment of a European Defence Agency to strengthen "the industrial and technological base of the defence sector"¹², yet it dodged the question of how the arms trade feeds conflict elsewhere in the world. While a Commission communication On Conflict Prevention¹³ emphasizes the need to control the supply of small arms and an EU Code of Conduct on Arms Export is in place, EU companies and governments are nevertheless busily competing for contracts to sell everything from pistols to missiles and military aircraft.
Armed forces may provide a defence against aggression and protection against disorder, but the lessons of our own history show that the roots of peace lie deeper. Our philosophy should be to use EU expertise, investment, technical facilities and resources to combat such known sources of conflict as 3^rd world poverty, malnutrition, and the spread of communicable diseases, as well as to promote education and training in the skills necessary for modern democracies to function effectively and - to put it bluntly - to survive. Only by the establishment of stable societies and improved living standards can the problems of population flows and human trafficking be solved.
Without waiting for the USA, the EU should also have the confidence to take a lead in applying the Kyoto Protocol provisions aimed at halving CO2 emissions and should assist 3rd world countries to make use of the technologies required for sustainable development. By such positive action the EU would demonstrate that it is not simply the world's largest trading bloc but also a political union made up of countries and peoples who have voluntarily put centuries of internecine warfare behind them in order to build a future based on the principles of peace, justice and respect for human rights. The EU's own internal development - namely, of a common institutional framework within which to work out solutions to any tensions which may occasionally occur between its member states - offers a suitable blueprint for conflict resolution elsewhere.

1 Congress of Europe 1948, Economic & Social Resolution
2 See for example An Essay towards the present & Future Peace of Europe by the British Quaker William Penn, first published in 1693
3 Preamble, Treaty establishing the European Coal & Steel Community, Paris 1951. My italics
4 Preamble, Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, Rome 1957
5 See NATO Handbook, Chapter 15; also Willem van Eekelen: Debating European Security, 1998
6 Maastricht Treaty, Title V, Article J.4. See also The Declaration of Western European Union attached to this Treaty
7 Maastricht Treaty, Title V, Article J.1
8 See, for example, Title V, Article 17-3 of the post-Nice Consolidated TEU
9 "The Strategic Culture of the European Union," International Affairs, July 2005
10 op.cit. pages 801-2
11 See Title V, Article 19 of the post-Nice Consolidated TEU
12 Draft Constitutional Treaty, Article I-41
13 COM(2001) 211 final