“Public Promotion of the NATO Smart Defence Model”
21 November 2011, Army Hall, Skopje

Mr Minister,
Mr President,
Dear Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you very much, Mr President, for having taken the initiative of organizing this very useful event, which shows the will of a real inclusion of Macedonia in the NATO problematics.

Well, in such cases, speaking after several participants can only lead to two options :

- either to talk very shortly, in order not to repeat what has already been said

- or to express some new ideas which have not been issued.

I will try to do both.

And for that I will focus on the “French way” of considering the “Smart Defence” issue.

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As you know, France has always had what we can call its own way to deal with defence questions.

Since the accession to the status of nuclear power during General de Gaulle’s presidency, a lot of events have proven that France has always wished to preserve its autonomy in this domain, but, nevertheless, also to play the international – or multinational – game, through NATO, as well as through EU.

When President Sarkorzy decided that France would totally reintegrate NATO military structures, he made it very clear :

- that nothing would be removed from our national sovereignty

- and that this move would go hand in hand with a boost to the European Defence.

These elements are very important in order to understand what I will say now about the stand of France towards the concept of “Smart Defence”.

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1/ First, France has favourably welcomed the “Smart Defence” initiative of General Secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

As the French Defence Minister, Gérard Longuet, said in Brussels, this initiative should encourage the Allies to do better and to use the savings, not incite them to spend less. The Alliance must keep its technological lead, it is a vital question

Despite the difficult budgetary conditions, France itself is maintaining its national effort in term of capacities.

Even after some recent cuts due to the economic crisis, the French Defence budget for 2012 will be increasing, up to 31.5 billions euros.

And we hope that our partners can also keep and develop their defence efforts on the long term.

The aim of “Smart Defence” is to increase the responsibilities of the Allies and push them to develop their capacities, not to dilute them through a common funding. “Spending better, not spending less” is a good motto.

2/ France takes actively part in the process of “Smart Defence”. We have expressed our intention to participate in 12 of the 46 projects considered by the Allied Command for Transformation, the ACT.

We are in favour of a pragmatic approach, on small group initiatives, rather than with all 28 members, small groups which could be progressively be enlarged.

3/ The example of the French-British cooperation, which has been rightly stressed by Christopher, vouches for our engagement in favour of multinational approaches, including in the most strategic matters.

The Libyan experience has been a very good illustration of what results our two countries can obtain. It has demonstrated the ability of a core-group of European countries to take over very quickly the operations.

During the whole Libyan operation, a proper functioning of the French-British tandem has been essential : this co-leadership has allowed evolutions of the operations management in critical moments (such as the engagement of attack-choppers, the development of naval fire-support, the sequencing of the end of operations).

Naturally, as usual, there have been some divergences, but they have been easily overcome.

4/ As I mentioned, we think it necessary to take in account the national autonomy of decision in the framework of use of multinationally developed capacities.

Moreover, all the operations conducted by the Allies are not led in the framework of the Alliance : it can be through UN, EU or on the national level.

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5/ Now, I have mentioned the link that we put between NATO and EU regarding defence, the EU being in our view an essential strategic partner for NATO.

We particularly insist on the complementarity, and therefore on the necessary articulation, between the multinational approaches in the framework of “Smart Defence” and the projects conducted by the EU, in the framework of the European Defence Agency, in terms of “pooling and sharing”.

The principle of subsidiarity must be implemented : the most appropriate framework must be chosen for each project.

6/ There are several ways to develop this European common defence.

It is possible to begin with bilateral cooperations, which can later be extended.

It was the case for the French-German Brigade, created in 1989 and which gave way in 1993 to the Eurocorps.

It is the case too for the French-British cooperation, and it is not by chance, since France and the UK are among the only 4 European countries (or maybe less now ?) respecting the threshold of 2% of the GDP for defence appropriations, as recommended by NATO.

7/ Now, since the Lisbon Treaty, we have a new framework to develop the European civil-military policy, namely the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), which is the operational constituent of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

The possibility of new mechanisms has been introduced, extending the field of the reinforced cooperations to the defence policies, what we call now Permanent Structured Cooperation.

France, Germany and Poland, which form what is known as the “Weimar Triangle”, have taken an initiative, now supported notably by Italy and Spain , which have given way to a report by High Representative Baroness Ashton, suggesting to work on several directions, including sharing the capacities, creating a permanent civil-military capacity for operational planning and strengthening the EU/NATO relations.

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And this brings me back to the NATO “Smart Defence” and to the confirmation that this concept is equally valuable, be it viewed through the eyes of a NATO Ally or those of an EU member-State.

Even if there are some differences among the 28 members of NATO on the implementation of this concept, especially on the way of funding it, I can assume that it will take a high place and will be a positive topic in the agenda of the next Alliance Summit in Chicago.