EUROPE'S DEFENCE - 3 MORE TOPICS


I have earlier written about NATO and about EU’s defence cooperation.  Today I want to add three important topics in relation to the defence of Europe:


1.     The discussion in NATO about using 2% of GNP on defence

2.     EUROCORPS

3.     FINABEL


The plans to use 2 % of GNP on defence:


This topic is repeated again and again by president Trump, when he claims that the US pays more or less everything in NATO.  This is – of course – totally wrong. Here is the background:

NATO’s defence ministers decided already in 2006 that the member states should work towards using at least 2 % of GNP for defence purposes.  This was confirmed on NATO’s summit in Wales in September 2014, where the final communique says: The member states must aim at getting towards the 2% guideline during the coming decade.


It is now 2020, so there are still four years until the end of that agreed deadline.


If we look at the figures for 2019, the following NATO countries use more than 2 % of their GNP:


US 3,47 %, Bulgaria 3,25 %, Greece 2,28 %, United Kingdom 2,14 %, Estonia 2,14 %, Romania 2,04 %, Lithuania 2,03 %, Latvia 2,01 % and Poland 2 %.


Denmark is in 2019 at 1,35 % and Belgium at 0,93 %.


I personally agree that our defence has to have sufficient means to be able to be efficient and deterring.  But when Trump all the time is boasting of the fact that the US is using 3,47 % of GNP on defence it is in reality less than half of that which is used for the defence of the NATO area.  This is clearly under the 2 % guideline. So, it is not fair to compare US figures with European figures.  The US has chosen to have huge military commitments in many other areas than Europe.  In addition to that, defence is for Trump mere firepower – not what we in Europe call soft power.  This is not part of his vocabulary.  Soft power is areas such as active diplomacy, nation-building, economic aid, development aid, peace keeping operations, etc.  Europe is much better at all that than the US, esp. nowadays.


It is also important to discuss, if this almost mechanical goal of 2 % is relevant at all. Perhaps it would be better to discuss and decide on particular tasks for each member state – tasks which then should be implemented in a close, integrated cooperation.


EUROCORPS:


This is a special military cooperation between 9 EU countries  to support military operations decided in NATO and/or in the EU.  The participating countries are:  France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, Poland, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Romania.   Denmark is not part of it.  Its headquarters is in Strasbourg in France.

EUROCORPS’ home page:  www.eurocorps.org


FINABEL:


This is a special military cooperation between six European countries:  France, Italy, Netherlands, Germany ( Allemagne ), Belgium and Luxembourg.  The abbreviation FINABEL comes from the names of the countries.  The purpose of this cooperation is to promote an efficient interoperability between the land forces of the participating countries, i.e. their armies.  The FINABEL headquarter is in Brussels.

FINABEL’s website:  www.finabel.org 

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