EUROPE's Foreign and Defence Ministers converge on Ostende two meetings today and tomorrow that will help to put another small brick in the complex evolving architecture of European security.
Ireland will be represented as an observer at the meeting of the Western European Union (WEU) tomorrow by the Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring, and the Defence Minister, Mr Sean Barrett.
Today's meeting of ministers, which will not be attended by Irish ministers or observers, is of the independent sister group to the WEU, the Western European Armaments Group. Its role has been to attempt to overcome national differences between the WEU member states to avoid wasteful duplication.
The discussions take place against the background of a major debate on NATO enlargement, the preparations for next month's summit of the Organisation of Security and Co operation in Europe (OSCE) when its future role will be debated, and the EU's own desire to create a military potential, at least in the area of humanitarian or peacekeeping work, to mirror its political weight on the world stage.
On Friday it emerged that the President of the European Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, has been involved in informal discussions with the NATO Secretary General, Mr Javier Solana, on what to do about Russian fears over the pace of the enlargement of both organisations.
Mr Solana is understood to have urged the EU to speed up the process of accession of the three Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania to ease pressure on NATO to do likewise in the face of serious Moscow objections. The idea is that EU membership will give the three an implicit, psychological security guarantee without advancing NATO into territory Russian nationalists regard still as their sphere of influence. NATO could then proceed simply with the membership of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The EU, with a huge internal agenda on its plate, not to mention the immensely difficult accession negotiations, is in no rush to do so. But the debate in the WEU (the European members of NATO) will have less to do with high politics, and more the practicalities of putting flesh on the organisation's emerging role as the EU's military arm. Of particular concern is the concept of Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTF), the means by which the WEU will borrow NATO assets to carry out humanitarian or peacekeeping operations for the union (known as "Petersberg tasks").
The ministers will not, however, discuss the sensitive issue of the shape of the EU's future institutional relationship with the WEU. To do so, several members contend, would pre empt discussion's in the EU's Inter Governmental Conference. The WEU, very much the junior partner in the EU-WEU-NATO relationship, will have to wait for others to decide its fate.
On the practical front the WEU has submitted a list of "illustrative missions" to NATO, ranging from small evacuation operations for EU citizens trapped in hypothetical civil conflict, to major peace enforcing operations. Now detailed discussions are under way on the scope of potential assets available to WEU and the detailed mechanics of borrowing them.
Ministers are also likely to discuss the situation in Zaire but will not back Belgian proposals for WEU involvement.
Senior WEU officials and diplomats report significant progress in transforming the WEU from the gentleman's club of a few years ago into a genuinely operational organisation, but it has some way still to go. So far it has only played a role in very small scale operations (now over) military support for the EU administration of Mostar, the blockade of trade against Serbia on the Danube, and a naval presence off Yugoslavia.
That experience has led to the creation of a "situation centre" within the WEU to monitor developments on a day to day basis in potential trouble spots.
The most significant innovation likely from the two day meetings, according to senior WEU officials, is the creation of a Western European Armaments Organisation to co ordinate common defence research among the members of the WEU.
