Ashton and Paloméros:
why the EU and NATO need partners
High Representative, you say
that a change of mind-set is needed
from national to international.
How feasible is that
and what role can your offices play?
When you look at the resources
available across the EU,
200 billion euros
are spent on defence,
we need to do better
with Euro resources.
We know that budgets are difficult,
that the challenges
that we all face are changing,
that we need to address those
and be ready for new challenges.
And take all of that
and create the political will
to collaborate more effectively
to make sure
that industry is better coordinated,
we need to use the resources
we have to best effect.
The challenges are huge for all of us
and we are working to make
the best out of the resources.
And that’s why really
we must work even better together
and look what are
the opportunities of today.
Obviously, within NATO,
with the 28 members
and certainly in the Allied
Command Transformation,
we are focussing more and more
on cost-effectiveness,
quality, relevance...
And those are key for the future.
So, I see us in NATO
interacting more and more frequently
and in depth with the nations
to make sure
we are on the same line.
As we’ve seen, there are
members of NATO and the EU
who are
in severe economic difficulties.
There are other countries
who are better placed to assist.
Do we need to look more at partners
outside these organisations?
Whenever we do a mission,
we have a number of countries
that we talk to
to contribute and collaborate with.
That’s been true off the Horn of Africa,
when dealing with piracy.
It’s true in the missions that we
prepared, both civilian and military.
And we’ll continue to do that because
it’s right to work with our partners.
However, it’s not a substitute
for what we need to do as well.
And as I said, we need
to be much more effective
and really look for those synergies,
for those economies of scale
between countries
and organisations.
In the new world you need allies,
within NATO
and outside NATO as well.
We saw that in Afghanistan,
many partners contributing
to the mission, and in Libya as well.
So, it’s very attractive for many
countries to be able to cooperate
and integrate
with NATO forces when needed.
You’ve talked about Smart Defence
and pulling in and sharing at the EDA.
That’s within organisations,
how much potential is there
for more cooperation?
We do a lot.
Secretary-General Rasmussen and I
spent a lot of time working out
how best to collaborate
between NATO and the European
Union. We do different things.
We need to make sure that we are
complementary in theatre
and in our planning and our thinking,
that we offer to the members
of NATO and the European Union
the opportunities
from our research capability,
from the capacity we have
to tackle specific problems.
Air-to-air refuelling
is an area where we’re doing that
in the European Defence Agency,
but in dialogue with NATO.
All of this we do well.
Of course, we can do better.