Will the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union lead to a Eurobomb?

Martin Butcher

This is a very difficult subject to make a presentation on, simply because it is so speculative. Any possible European nuclear force lies far into the future, and the European Union (EU) will have to go through an enormous amount of structural and political development before such a thing could be realized. It is, however, already possible to discern the threads of the process by which the EU could become a nuclear power; of the way in which politicians are beginning to consider the idea; and of the Franco-British cooperation that would be the basis for a Eurobomb.

The fact that the British and French governments consider cooperation to be possible, and that an increasing number of politicians (in Paris and Brussels, at least) are ready to entertain the idea of a "Force de Frappe" with Jacques Santer's finger on the button, makes our debate, however speculative, necessary.

I will first examine how the debate on European nuclear weapons arose, then look at Franco-British cooperation in the nuclear field, and then take a brief look at some of the political positions currently emerging on a European Nuclear Force. Finally, I will take a look at what would be needed before there could be a European Nuclear Force, and draw some conclusions about its likelihood.

Political History

The brief flurry of interest in the "Eurobomb" in the mid-1980s died down quickly, as it had during the 1960s. The idea was clearly well ahead of its time; the Cold War continued, and US cooperation with the United Kingdom on nuclear affairs was never in doubt.

The question resurfaced in France in the context of the pre-Maastricht debate in 1992; President Mitterrand's opening New Year's address to the nation contained the following short phrase: "Only two of the twelve have nuclear forces. For their national policies they have a clear doctrine. Is it possible to conceive of a European one? This will quickly become one of the major questions on the construction of a common European defense."

He was quickly followed by Jacques Delors, who told the "Heure de Verité" panel on January 7 that, although France should maintain an independent nuclear force, "if we move to political union with a certain number of countries that have agreed to have a common foreign policy, well then, in my opinion, the French nuclear force should be put at the disposal of that policy".

The Gaullist RPR was not far behind, with Francois Fillon (now Post and Telecom Minister) stating that spring that "It would not be a matter of offering an explicit nuclear guarantee nor of stationing weapons on a neighbor's territory, but rather of Europe agreeing to spell out jointly and clearly what tasks French and British nuclear forces should play in our common defense." In July 1992, Pierre Joxe (then defense minister) followed this with a comment on Radio France Inter: "I think that this very wide debate will enable us to examine under what circumstances we can put France's nuclear capabilities at the service of Europe's defense."

The debate on the future of European nuclear weapons had been seriously engaged on, at least in France, and in the relatively small circle of strategic thinkers. There was very little debate along the same lines in the United Kingdom, where the old assumptions about the "independent deterrent" and the transatlantic relationship were not being challenged.

The debate between the two allies was joined in Paris at the end of September 1992, and the UK partners quickly poured cold water onto the hopes of their French colleagues. The colloquium "A New Strategic Debate", held at the end of September 1992, was the beginning of a rethinking of French post-Cold War defense policy, and ultimately led to the 1994 White Paper. Prime Minister Pierre Beregovoy discussed future European defense and underlined the difficulties of creating a conventional force for Europe. Adding that creating a joint nuclear defense would be even more difficult, he said that "a sensible first step would, without doubt, consist of a rapprochement of the opinions of the two Community nuclear powers: France and Great Britain".

UK Defense Minister Malcolm Rifkind showed no enthusiasm whatsoever for the ideas expressed by his French colleagues. He stressed the importance of the United States and NATO in European defense. He did concede, however, that European defense could be strengthened by a clearer understanding that "the weapons of the European nuclear powers are there to underpin the security of non-nuclear partners and allies". Subsequently, during that autumn's NATO Nuclear Planning Group meeting, he revealed that France and the United Kingdom were looking at possibilities for cooperation in the nuclear field as a way of strengthening deterrence in Europe.

A year later, Malcolm Rifkind, at the Centre for Defense Studies, gave the defining speech for UK nuclear policy in the 1990s. The European element in Franco-British cooperation received more emphasis than had been the case a year before, while still placing it firmly in a context of strengthening "the specific European contribution to the deterrence which underpins the collective security of the whole Alliance". He listed deterrence, nuclear doctrines, anti-missile defenses, arms control, and non-proliferation as key areas for this cooperation.

At the time of the 1994 Anglo-French Summit in Chartres, these ideas were revisited, particularly by the French. President Francois Mitterrand, with John Major's agreement, stated in the closing press conference that "Nuclear deterrence is at the base of European security. Nuclear deterrence is the basis of both of our defense capabilities."

Previously, the Chief of the Defense Staff in France, Admiral Lanxade, had been much more specific: "France does not exclude the possibility of placing a nuclear deterrent force in the defense of Europe, within the Western European Union. If, on the one hand, it is too premature to speak of setting up a nuclear deterrent force at the service of Europe, it is not too early to approach the idea of risk-sharing and responsibilities, which joint possession of nuclear weapons would imply. A European nuclear doctrine is problematic at this stage. It is bound to become one of the fundamental questions in the construction of a common European defense."

This continuing debate on nuclear weapons and Europe flowed clearly from the French debate on their future role in the world, and their strategic priorities in the post-Cold War world. The French desire to increase the importance of the European contribution to European defense through the Western European Union (WEU) was clearly an impetus for this. President Mitterrand had, erroneously, at the time the debate was started, seen a return to a form of traditional great-power politics in Europe, where the EU would balance the Soviet Union in Europe, and would act as third power between the United States and the Soviet Union on the world stage. This dream collapsed alongside the Soviet Union in the August coup. However, the need to find a role on the world stage continues to provide justification for these efforts.

For the United Kingdom it is an opportunity to try to strengthen the European element in NATO, as well as tie France closer to the Alliance. For France, conversely, the United Kingdom can be brought closer to Europe through nuclear cooperation.

While starting the debate on a future European deterrent is an important political element in the process, in itself it is clearly not enough to bring it about, nor to even launch it as a serious possibility. Practical cooperation between France and the United Kingdom, and a drawing together of their doctrines and forces, are obviously preconditions for further progress down the road of Eurodeterrence. The language and organizational problems inside the Eurocorps should give the soldiers and politicians cause for thought on the difficulties of putting a European deterrent force in place. If the United Kingdom and France cannot cooperate, the idea will never take shape. An examination of the nascent cooperation between Europe's two nuclear powers is therefore needed.

Franco-British Cooperation

Although discussions began earlier, active cooperation between the United Kingdom and France in this area has been pursued only since late-1992 in the Anglo-French Commission on Nuclear Policy - although, true to the secrecy of the nuclear states, this was not officially revealed until last year.

Interest early on centered mainly on possible British cooperation in development of the Aerospatiale Missile Air Sol a Longue Portee (ASLP). This would have fulfilled the Royal Air Force (RAF) requirement for a stand-off weapon to replace the aging free-fall WE-177 bombs, and for France it will replace, early next century, the ASMP currently deployed with the Force Aerienne Strategique. The United Kingdom had been looking for some years at the purchase of a stand-off weapon, with the favorite candidate being the American SRAM-T.

However, with the cancellation of this missile program by President George Bush, the United Kingdom was left with the choice of either developing it alone or collaborating with France for the purchase of such a missile. Despite French lobbying at the highest level, John Major decided to cancel the requirement for a stand-off nuclear missile and eventually to even denuclearize the RAF. This was a bitter disappointment for Paris and a heavy setback for relations between the countries in this field.

The next disappointment was to be the United Kingdom's. When the US Congress forced Bush to declare a moratorium on nuclear testing, the United Kingdom was left with a bomb down a hole in Nevada and nowhere to explode it. Incredibly enough (in view of the French moratorium), the UK Minister of Defense approached Paris to inquire about the possibility of the United Kingdom using the French testing ground. The response was a sharp "no" and the nuclear "Entente Cordiale" suffered another blow.

Despite these short-term setbacks, however, there has been steady contact at the civil servant level. Discussions with individuals from both sides of the Chartres Summit November 1994, as well as deep background media briefings, have left no doubt that the discussions between France and the United Kingdom have borne some fruit in a variety of areas.

Sub-Strategic or Pre-Strategic Doctrine

Between the two countries, little difference exists in the concept of limited, pre-strategic use of nuclear weapons. The French doctrine of a final warning shot that leads to a massive nuclear strike sits well with the future UK "tactical Trident" idea. In Chartres, officials claimed that agreement had almost been reached on common principles for such a doctrine. Although the decision in 1988 to discontinue the RAF's pre-strategic role - by abandoning the WE-177 nuclear bomb - was a blow to France in this area, talks continue.

Joint or Coordinated Missile Submarine Patrols

This idea has been floating for some years now, and if a common doctrine is close, it may well become a reality. There were hints last year that such a policy was only prevented from becoming a reality because the UK Polaris fleet was so aged that it was not patrolling anymore, or, at least, that no submarine was out for more than two weeks at a time. The arrival of the Trident submarine will make coordinated patrols possible.

Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

This could be seen in action at the recent NPT Review Conference in New York, as the United Kingdom and France worked hand-in-glove to pursue their aims: coordinating positions, working on key states together during negotiations, and supporting each other at every turn along the way. Jointly, they led the EU into a strong campaign for an indefinite and unconditional extension of the NPT. There could not have been a better example of common interests in action. (The fact that this conference showed some wide divergences between the two nuclear states and their European partners indicates how difficult the road to a European deterrent will be.) This close bond between the EU's nuclear duo is also very much in evidence in negotiations at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva.

A very important area of cooperation that has not been previously mentioned is the ongoing collaboration between French and British nuclear weapon laboratories. Should nuclear testing be banned, this will become even more important and will have to be watched.

I think that we can conclude from the similarity of approach between the United Kingdom and France that the two countries will gradually solve many of their current problems, and that close nuclear cooperation will become the order of the day for them. This will remove one major obstacle to a European nuclear force. Wider problems will, however, remain.

Brussels Politicians, and the Bomb

If the United Kingdom and France are moving forward, what about the rest of Europe, or at least the EU? In Brussels, at least, and at the WEU, there is clear evidence among politicians of a desire to furnish the EU with a future nuclear force. The Christian Democrats of the European Parliament return time and again to this theme, and the WEU Assembly last year passed a report that welcomes the possibility.

The European Parliament

A long series of reports from both the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP), and from its Security and Disarmament Sub-committee, have called for the examination into the creation of a European nuclear force. As early as 1992, before the Treaty on European Union (TEU) had even been fully negotiated, the De Gucht report "On the Future Relations Between the European Community, WEU, and Atlantic Alliance" was looking far beyond the scope of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The report called for the creation of a General Directorate for Security and Defense in the European Commission with a commissioner responsible for defense. Furthermore, the Council of Ministers should have a council for security and defense.

Both developments should take place in stages and be completed by the year 2000. The report categorically states that "Nuclear deterrence is still needed in view of the remaining nuclear power of Russia" and calls for the WEU to be integrated into the EU by 1998, as part of a process whereby the Atlantic Treaty is revised and signed "as a treaty between the United States and the European Union to better reflect the new, equal relationship between the two sides of the Atlantic".

A late 1993 report by Hans Gert Poettering for the European Parliament called for the development of the EU's security and defense policy to be carried out "within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance". Since NATO defense rests on a nuclear strategy - and this is not challenged in the document - we can only assume that the EU intends to duplicate this strategy. The report echoed the De Gucht report on the integration of the WEU into the EU.

The nuclear theme was taken up in a very oblique way by Abel Matutes of the Foreign Affairs Committee in his January 1995 comment on the report of the Institutional Committee on the operation of the TEU. He called for the EU to absorb "all the obligations of the WEU as the European pillar of the Atlantic Alliance". There should be no doubt that the committee understood the full meaning of this phrase, because it had been the subject of two prolonged debates before it was agreed to, with bitter discussion on nuclear weapons at times.

Furthermore, during the spring 1995 debate on the Wiersma Report on the NPT, there was widespread support in both the Christian Democrat and Socialist groups for a European deterrent, which was seen as necessary for European defense.

The Western European Union

Much more important than any of these, however, is the report by De Decker of the Defense Committee of the WEU Assembly. This normally somnolent body produced a report last year on "The Role and Future of Nuclear Weapons", which has received much coverage and has been the subject of much discussion in Brussels.

The report is too long to examine in detail here. However, some elements of it should be commented on, as it was very well received in some important circles, including that of Commissioner Hans van den Broek's cabinet, the WEU Secretariat, the EP, and other diplomats in the EU and NATO. I will confine myself to looking at a few highlights here. The motion for a resolution at the beginning of the report notes, inter alia, that it would be "totally illogical to start implementation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy" without "examining the role of the French and British nuclear forces in the definition of a common defense policy of the EU". It welcomes the work of the Anglo-French commission and notes that "the existence of a formidable nuclear arsenal in Russia continues to determine the structure and deployment of French and British nuclear forces". It calls for a study of the vital interests of the United Kingdom and France in a European context that must be defended by deterrence, and goes on to urge the WEU Council to consider the role of nuclear weapons in the security of Europe.

Its formal recommendation is that the WEU should set up a strategic study group to "examine the role and future of nuclear weapons for European security, including the different aspects of intra-European extended deterrence, the role all the WEU member states might play in defining a future European nuclear strategy, and then to study the possibility of creating a nuclear coordination body within the WEU".

The report, in its chapter on European cooperation, sounds an alarm about the erosion of the United States' commitment to the nuclear defense of the NATO Allies, and states that, in the context of developing a future common defense, the nuclear question is one that will have to be dealt with. It goes on to recommend the involvement of Germany by small, incremental steps into nuclear weapons policy, because the construction of a full, European defense will be impossible without Germany.

We can conclude that the politicians who are thinking about the future construction of a European defense are, by and large, in agreement about how it should be built. The WEU is to be brought into the EU. The EU is to take over full responsibility for defense policy, including nuclear defense policy. This is to be done in the framework of a new NATO, with the United States and the European Union as members. And this future European defense will rest, as Francois Mitterrand once put it, "on the rock of nuclear deterrence".

Remaining Obstacles to a European Nuclear Force

Things, however, are not as clear-cut as it would appear. Many obstacles remain to the EU becoming a nuclear power, and to this being done through a developed CFSP. Any such development would, at a minimum, be very far down the road. The obstacles are both technical and political in nature, and the latter, in particular, will be very difficult to surmount.

Technical Obstacles

Communications, command, control, and intelligence (C3I): Europe at present possesses very few C3I means that are independent of NATO. The satellite data processing center in Spain is only recently becoming truly operational, and has very few satellites from which to gather data. This lack was highlighted during the Gulf War, when the Europeans were forced to rely on the United States for satellite intelligence.

Current ambitious programs led by France will change this over the next decade. France's spending on space-based intelligence and communications systems has risen by around 15% a year during the last four years. While this level of growth cannot continue due to economic malaise, satellites will, nonetheless, not be underfunded over the next few years.

Recent developments include the Syracuse II communications satellite, put up in 1991. The Helios optical observation satellite, which has a limited signals-intelligence capability, was put in space last year and has greatly enhanced European capability in this area. The small, more secret Cerise satellite was launched at the same time and is defined as having "an experimental mission to monitor radio communications". The Zenon signals-intelligence satellite and the Osiris all-weather observation satellite are both planned for launch around the year 2000. With further developments in the SPOT optical observation satellites, European capability will be perfectly adequate for all intelligence and communications needs.

United Kingdom Links to the United States

One major problem affecting enhanced Franco-British cooperation will be the extent to which the United Kingdom relies on the United States, not only for designs of nuclear warheads and for maintenance of missiles, but also for targeting of the Trident missiles. The symbiotic nature of the Unites States-United Kingdom relationship puts a strong brake on the developing European relationship and can only be changed by strong Franco-British cooperation on actual weapons. This is currently not envisaged.

Political Problems

There are more than a few political objections to the creation of a European nuclear force. The first objection must be the nature of the CFSP itself. The very limited successes that have been possible thus far have only been achieved in areas that have proved completely non-controversial, such as the indefinite extension of the NPT and the Balladur-initiated Stability Pact. This is unlikely to change as long as the CFSP remains an inter-governmental policy subject to national veto. It is very hard to imagine any country giving up national control over an issue such as the CFSP. It is, therefore, likely that no European nuclear force could be created until the CFSP is brought into the competence of the EU and is subjected to qualified majority voting. And even that may not be sufficient.

Furthermore, the CFSP has only been operating for about 18 months, and it is still commonplace to hear commission or council personnel stating - as a matter of fact - that it does not yet exist and that they are still sorting out ways it could work. The CFSP, after all, is only a mechanism and not actual policy. There would have to be many years of gaining experience on collaboration before the CFSP could conceivably lead to a situation in which it could give guidance to a policy of nuclear deterrence.

Secondly, there are national objections to a European nuclear force. Several EU nations are, at best, uncongenial to the idea of becoming part of a nuclear power. Finland proposed removing and destroying all tactical nuclear weapons in Europe at the NPT conference. Sweden has long held a position against nuclear weapons, and Denmark and Ireland sit outside the WEU structure for the present, as does Austria. At least one EU nation has privately commissioned a legal opinion to determine whether the EU, if it became a federal state, could, under the terms of the NPT, legally take control of French and British nuclear weapons.

Could it be that rather than EU development leading to a new nuclear power, it will instead force the United Kingdom and France to divest themselves of nuclear weapons altogether? Will the nuclear weapons actually be a brake on a deeper Union? Representatives of two EU states have told me that a nuclear-armed EU would be one that their countries could not be part of. Thus, it appears that at the very least, any future nuclear force will be extremely controversial.

Thirdly, there is the assessment of what would constitute a common threat. One key element in deciding on a European nuclear force would be agreement over what the common vital interests are, and what constitutes a threat to them. For the present, such a common assessment seems very unlikely. Can we imagine Ireland and Greece having a shared view over which threats to the EU would require nuclear use?

Conclusion

I have very briefly examined the origin of the debate on the European nuclear force; the practical steps that France and the United Kingdom are trying to take that might lead in this direction; the political support that such ideas have in Brussels; and finally, the problems that will be encountered along the way.

It is my role to stimulate debate rather than provide all the answers (for which I am grateful). But in a simple response to the question, "Could the CFSP lead to a EU nuclear force?" I will reply with a hesitant, "Yes, maybe". Although not for many years, and not without many difficulties. But that should be enough to concern us all.