Alphen, the Netherlands. 11 July.
Can the Franco-British strategic defence relationship survive? Yesterday,
at the close of a modest lunch in Downing Street, British Prime Minister David
Cameron said he had, “found much common ground” with French President Francois
Hollande. Following discussions ranging
from the Eurozone debt crisis to Syria and Iran Cameron talked of a “strong
relationship” and that both agreed the planned increase of the EU’s budget
to €14 billion ($25 bn) by 2020 was “unacceptable”. Clearly, the many issues of contention, such as
France’s call for a financial services transaction tax, were either avoided or
kept secret. Cameron only hinted at
the fundamental issue dividing the two countries; “We are clearly better off
within the European Union…but I don’t think Britain is happy with the current
relationship”.
The Franco-British
strategic defence relationship matters. First, it is a key European-European
state relationship beyond EU competence. Second,
it is perhaps the only European relationship willing to think big about military
matters in a very big military world. Founded
on two landmark defence agreements the relationship has long been a strategic
cornerstone. The 1998 St Malo
Declaration seemed for a time to have resolved tension between NATO and the
EU’s defence ambitions and paved the way for the now moribund Common Security
and Defence Policy.
On 2 November, 2010 the Franco-British
Defence and Security Treaty was signed and heralded a new dawn in the two
countries’ strategic defence relationship. The
treaty called for “mutual interdependence” and the sharing and pooling of
defence materials and equipment, the building of joint facilities and “mutual access”
to each other’s defence industries. In addition
there were agreements over nuclear stockpile stewardship, a new framework
agreement for exchanges on operational matters and a proposal for a Combined
Joint Expeditionary Force. At the time
there was also agreement that Britain and France should work together on the
next generation of aircraft carriers.
However, the British decision to revert to the use solely of carrier-based
short and vertical take-off aircraft effectively scrapped that line of
co-operation.
Two other developments have
undermined the relationship. First, the Eurozone crisis has pitched Anglo-French
relations into uncharted waters inevitably affecting the strategic defence
relationship. France is not only at the heart of the crisis whilst Britain is
fast becoming a full-paying third-class member of the EU, Paris has always seen
such agreements as a step on the road to a full-blown European defence
construct to which Britain is implacably opposed. Economic union will in time make that more
likely not less. Second, the 2010 treaty
came at a time when Cameron was still early in his premiership and was hoping
to ‘rebalance’ Britain’s relationship between Europe and the US. However, such a rebalancing pre-supposed a
Britain that would not be forced to choose between its economic relationship
with Europe and its strategic defence relationship with the US. The January 2012 shift in US defence posture
towards East Asia will indeed over time force Britain to choose. And, given the Great
European Defence Depression the British are rightly going with the Americans,
even though that will have its own problems.
Given those pressures it
will be a miracle if the Franco-British strategic relationship survives…but
survive it must for the good of all. In
the short-term some sensitivity will be needed.
The British must not under-estimate the attachment of the French to the
Euro as a symbol of the French view of Europe.
The French must stop lecturing the British about said view of ‘Europe’, and
stop attempting to subordinate Britain to French ambitions and the bill that
goes along with them.
Sadly, the toxic
chemistry between the two countries makes trust a rare commodity. Sometime ago I had a chat with a French
four-star general whom I like and respect.
The conversation was not easy. He
told me a story of a recent deployment by the French aircraft-carrier Charles de Gaulle, which had been
escorted by a British frigate. He
claimed that Paris learnt later that the frigate only had orders to protect
itself. He even called the British “perfidious”. I checked. Not only was mon general wrong, but London found working with the French proved
difficult because agreed operational schedules were never maintained. What is clear is that Paris does feel let down by London at times and has a point. Britain and France need to rise above this
kind of thing.
The road ahead will be
rocky. Cameron’s contradictory argument
that more European integration is needed, but that non-integrating Britain is
better off in the European Union is patent nonsense. Something is going to have to give and unless
the two countries can demonstrate a genius for statecraft both have lacked for
many years then it is hard to see the Franco-British strategic defence relationship
surviving. That would be a shame given
the world in which these two middling powers are moving.
Julian Lindley-French
