How did European Parliament vote on Arms Trade and Militarisation?

On the 25th of May 2014, EU citizens will elect a new European Parliament. Vredesactie has been keeping a close eye on the EU, for the EU is being militarized. The EU is taking on the bellicose traits of its Member States and as a result, the original civil peace project is acquiring a more and more military face. Perhaps the most alarming development is the growing influence of the arms industry on European policy and policy making. The arms industry is having its say in everything from joint defence tasks, regulations for arms export, the priorities of European research. It even leaves its mark on immigration policy and matters such as healthcare, the Internet, and international transport.

In this article we analyse the voting record of MEPs. How did MEPs vote on topics such as subsidies for the arms industry, arms export controls, and the development of military drones? What intitiatives they took to conserve and strengthen the civil nature of the EU? And what did they say on the use of civil budgets for military purposes?

This report is part of the campaign: “Ctrl+Alt+EU: no military Europe” from Vredesactie and Agir pour la Paix, and was produced in cooperation with the Dutch Campaign against Arms Trade . We made use of the data of Votewatch to analyse voting record of MEPs. On www.score-ep.org, score-cards for all 753 MEPs are automatically generated from Parltrack data. You can check the voting behaviour of individual MEPs, countries or political groups not only on Arms Trade and Militarisation but also on Climate Change, GMOs and Fracking. The website is produced by Friends of the Earth Europe and some smart hackers. Vredesactie provided the data for the section on Arms Trade and Militarisation.

1. Subsidies and other support for the arms industry

In 2011 the European Commission set up a task force to look at how it could strenghten the arms industry. The industry was closely involved in drafting a range of policy proposals which the Commission made public on 24 July 2013. The Commission announced a specific program for the development for new weapon technology ánd the intention to buy prototypes of new weapon technology, in particular military drones. She also wants to “strengthen the international dimension” –  in human readable language: the Commission wants to promote the global sales of European weapon technology.

While the arms industry was closely involved in writing the policy proposals, as usual the European Parliament was involved only at the end of the process. Moreover, the involvement meant little: first the texts of the Commission were discussed in different parliamentary committees and next MEPs could vote on the proposals of the Commission. Only a minority of the MEPs had questions or remarks. The large a majority 'welcomed' the proposals of the Commission and called on the European Council to 'give all possible support' to the arms industry.

At its meeting in December 2013, the European Council tasked the Commision to work out its proposals in detail. It is unclear how much money will be put on the new budget for the development of weapon technology, but a sum of 50-100 million euros is often quoted. And that's only the preparatory work. The European program for security research also started with such a preparatory action, but in the mean time that budget amounts to more than a billion euros.

2. Arms export

On December 8, 2008 the European Council agreed on the Common Position on Arms Export. Licencing arms export remains a competence of the Member States, but the Common Position lists a number of criteria that Member States must take into consideration. The Common Position is mostly an exercise in finding the greatest common divisor, and in many countries it resulted in less stringent arms export regulation.

There is a serious contradiction in arms export policy, and this contradiction is also part of the Common Position. On the one hand, eight criteria dealing with human rights and democracy are listed to curb arms exports. But on the other hand, a strong arms industry is explicitely mentioned as an objective. To achieve that objective, (more) arms exports are crucially important. According to the Common Position, industrial and commercial interests may not affect the application of the eight restrictive criteria. The practice is different. Commercial interests are almost always deemed more important. An example: during the Arab Spring in 2011, arms transfers to the Middle-East were worth 9 billion euros. A billion more than in the preceding year 2010, and more than double the amount of 2007. Not a surprise then, that numerous videos and images showed European weapons used in te repression of protests.

European Parliament is aware of this contradiction. In 2013 a proposal for resolution was tabled by the greens, the social-democrats and the left faction, in which a more strict and uniform control on arms export was demanded. The voting record of the liberal faction in particular was striking. While they voted in favour of different individual proposals, they voted against the resolution as a whole. In the end the liberals voted for another resolution, without a single concrete proposal. This was a missed opportunity for European Parliament to provide a counter weight to the European Commision. The Commission for its part says straightforwardly that it wants to promote arms sales worldwide to increase the profitability of the arms industry.

3. Militarisation in the EU

The EU is being militarised. Ever more military structures are set-up on European level. For a long time the EU was a civil project; defence remained the competence of the Member States. That time is long past. In the mean time, the EU received the competences, institutions and operational structures to intervene military across the globe.

Most MEPs are advocates of a strong military Europe. In June 2013 Parliament voted on a report from the committee of foreign affairs. The failed interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lybia have painfully demonstrated the limits of military action. Apparently, the catastrophes in Iraq and Afghanistan are already forgotten. The most important lesson that the MEPs draw from the intervention in Lybia is that the EU has not enough military capabilities.

In another report on the European Common Security and Defence Policy, European Parliament openly applauds the role that European armies can play in safeguarding trade routes and energy supply. Too easily, MEPs assume that the use of military instruments in these civil activities will lead to a more secure Europe.

Also in other policy domains a military logic is advancing. The world is being divided in green zones and red zones; there are intruders everywere that have to be neutralized, public space must be permanently controlled with hi-tech surveillance systems. Governments need the technology and capabilities to quickly intervene everywhere at any time.

Migration is an example of a social phenomenon with diverse social, political and economic aspects. But for the arms industry migration is only interesting when it can help to sell more products. Therefore takes migration from a military perspective: migrants are seens as intruders that constitute a threat and therefore must be monitored, detected, controlled and, when necessary be neutralized or eliminated.

In October 2013, European Parliament agreed on the working principles of “Eurosur”, the European system for border control. Within Eurosur, real-time images and data will be exchanged between the Member States and Frontex, the European agency for border control. Data will be collected through systematic and large-scale surveillance of the Meditteranean making use of drones, ships and sattelites. The major task of Eurosur is to stop migrants from entering the EU. Human rights organizations are warning that this will lead to more trafficking and more deaths, such as in October 2013 when 130 refugees died tragically before the coast of Lampedusa. The militarisation of border control does not guarantee a humane and effective immigration policy.

4. Drones

On February 25, 2014 a large majority of MEPs adopted a resolution in which European Parliament expresses its grave concern over the use of armed drones. Drones are unmanned (aerial) vehicles that are either controlled from a distance or operate completely autonomous. Is this a U-turn from Parliament? Indeed, in recent years European Parliament voted regularly in favour of the development of military drones.

In the same resolution of February 25, European Parliament states that European subsidies have been used for the development of military drones. This means that the rules for granting such subsidies have been offended. According to these rules, only research projects with strict civil application are eligible for EU R&D subsidies. Implicitely Parliament admits that it is not able to effectivily enforce its own regulations.

When Parliament is earnest on drones, it should do more than merely express its concern. Both the European Defense Agency and the European Commision want to promote drones as a flagship project of European weapon technology. Currently, the European arms industry has only a minor role in the production of drones, which is dominated by American and Israeli companies. But European arms manufacturers are working hard to develop the next generation fighter drones: recently drone programs have been set-up in the UK, Germany and France. Many see the development of a European drone as the perfect project to promote military cooperation in Europe, and a the same time as an opportunity for further consolidation in the arms industry. The European Commission from its part has promised 100 million euro to stimulate such cooperation and consolidation.

You would think that there is a security analysis lying behind such a program for the development of weapon technology, from which the (supposed) need for a new technology is derived. However, the question about the military and strategic necessity for a fighter drone is not asked. Yves Robins, vice president of the French arms manufacturer Dassualt Aviation and involved with the development of a fighter drone (the nEUROn) puts it like this: “Everybody knows that the answer is the fighter drone, but nobody knows what the question is.” The arms industry knows very well why such a drone has to be developed: it wants to make profit with it. Without hesitation, Dassault writes  on its website that the nEUROn-project has the aim “to provide workload” to the engineers and technicians in the arms industry. Without it, these highly schooled technicians might want to work in less war mongering industries, isn't it?

5. Budgetary pollution

With budgetary pollution we denote the use of civil budgets for military activities. This is a de facto and hidden increase of the defence budgets. It diverts tax payer money from civil activities to military applications, and it blurs the line between civil and military expenditures.

At multiple instants, a majority of MEPs has voted in favour of the use of civil budgets for military applications. The European Parliament doesn't make a secret of its intentions: it wants to provide a counter weight to the decreasing defence budgets in the Member States. The Parliaments finds this decrease problematic. And since there is no support for the openly increase of the defence budgets, it actively looks for ways to circumvent this.

A vote on the European battlegroups made this very clear: according tot he majority of MEPs everything that has not to do with effective operations of the battlegroups can be funded from the general civil EU budget. The battlegroups consist of soldiers from different EU countries that are permanently kept operational. When the current costs can be paid from the EU budget, this would be a real saving on the national defence budgets.

The past years, the arms industry has eagerly profited from the European, civil, research program “FP7-security”, with a budget of 1.4 billion euros. Arms manufacturers were able to get military research projects funded by overbrimming them with a sauce of “civil applications”. They secured funding for the development of drone technology and military border control. Despite the fact that, on paper at least, research projects funded by FP7 can have strictly civil applications.

The first proposals of the new research program and successor of FP7, Horizon 2020, also stated that funded projects should have strictly civil applications. The committee of security and defence in the European Parliament approved a very clear report. It contained the opinion that the development of weapon technology should be made possible under Horizon 2020. The vote was secret, but a majority of the members of the committee voted in favour.

In the final legislative texts on Horizon 2020, the requirement for strict civil application of EU funded R&D projects was retained. Still, arms manufacturers can be partner of these projects and are eligible for funding. Even when they are only active on the defence market they can receive EU funding. How can a company that is only active on the defence market avoid that the subsidies it gets are used in military applications?

Furthermore: in a resolution to support the arms industry, European Parliament encouraged the Commission and the European Defence Agency to ensure that results of R&D projects funded under Horizon 2020 will also benefit military applications. As such, the European Parliament is hollowing out its own regulations.

Check out our campaign against the militarisation of Europe: Ctrl+Alt+EU: no military Europe.