Jorge Domecq, EDA Chief Executive, today met with the Luxembourgish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Etienne Schneider to exchange views on the preparation of the European Council in June 2015, Luxembourg’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union and Luxembourg’s participation in EDA projects.
“The example of our future Luxembourg Governmental Satellite perfectly illustrates how public and private actors can work together for their mutual benefit and how defence spending can contribute to economic growth and job creation. The Luxembourg GovSat will be operated by a joint-venture company in Luxembourg, which brings together the government and the world-leading satellite operator SES established in the Grand-Duchy to launch a communication satellite with military frequency bands for the use of the Luxembourg government and its defence. This public-private partnership is one example illustrating how defence spending can benefit even a small economy without a significant armaments or specific defence industry of its own. As the EDA does, we promote working closely together with the private sector and looking whenever possible for economic opportunities for local companies, even SMEs, when planning for defence projects”, said Etienne Schneider, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defence and Minister of the Economy.
”Luxembourg will take over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2015 - right after the June European Council on defence. Based on the excellent cooperation between the Agency and the Luxembourg Ministry of Defence, I have today assured Minister Schneider of our support in any defence related Presidency initiative. In particular, EDA will support a seminar organised on public-private partnerships as part of our endeavour to set up incentives for more cooperation in the development of European defence capabilities”, stressed Jorge Domecq during his visit in Luxembourg.
The visit in Luxembourg also allowed for meetings at the European Investment Bank and at the NATO Support and Procurement Agency. It is part of a series of visits by Mr. Domecq to all EDA Member States following his appointment as EDA Chief Executive and ahead of the Ministerial Steering Board on 18 May 2015. So far, Mr. Domecq visited Spain, Lithuania, Latvia, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, Ireland, France, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Estonia, Poland, Slovenia, Greece and Cyprus. Upcoming confirmed visits are Finland, Sweden and Italy.
In 2003, EU-China relations were upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Over ninety dialogues and working groups feed the work of annual EU-China Summit.
What does the new surveillance law passed by Parliament specify?
The idea is to modernize the capabilities of the intelligence services, particularly given the rise of digital media. This legislation is not limited to terrorism. It is designed to prevent organized crime and protect essential interests of foreign policy and essential economic or scientific interests of France.
One of the goals is to legalize activities that until now did not have a legal basis. This law is essentially designed to protect the intelligence services.
A Socialist deputy who is also the President of the Legislative Committee of the National Assembly noted that France is the last Western democracy not to have a formal legal framework covering the activities of its intelligence services.
In France there is 100 percent consensus on diplomacy and defense, and this is part of defense.
Critics see the legislation as a dangerous extension of mass surveillance, and have compared it to the US Patriot Act. Do you agree?
It is partly a response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January, but it is not a knee-jerk Patriot Act. It is an attempt to put an appropriate legal framework around intelligence-gathering activities and to include in that legal framework the new types of communications technology.
In one sense, it certainly goes in the direction of the Patriot Act because it formalizes what the intelligence services are allowed to do, but the view in the United States is that the Patriot Act and the response to 9/11 was overdone.
There are a couple of differences between France and the United States on this point. One, the French government is seen as the protector of civil liberties. There have been protests that this legislation will allow the government to spy on us, but I think everybody thinks that the government in France already has a lot of information.
The primary priority of the French people is security. That’s why when the Charlie Hebdo attacks happened there was 100 percent support for the way the security services responded. This legislation updates and fills the gap, something that the Charlie Hebdo attacks made clear needs to be done.
In France, a Constitutional Council has skilled advisors to opine on whether a law is constitutional in advance of it being adopted. In the United States, it could take a generation to know whether a law is constitutional because it has to go through a long appeals process, since the Supreme Court is both the ultimate court of appeals as well as the constitutional court.
François Hollande, with this particular law, is asking the Constitutional Council for an opinion as to the constitutionality of the law in advance of the law being promulgated. This is the first time since 1958 that the President of the republic has actually himself gone to the Constitutional Council and asked for such a clarification. So in terms of protecting civil liberties, the state is doing its job.
Following Edward Snowden’s revelations, many US lawmakers now favor scaling back the National Security Agency’s access to Internet data. How do you explain these divergent approaches?
In France, you don’t have an adversarial government system. In the United States, Congress is there to correct the excesses of the executive. In the United States, things happen because they happen and then they get adjusted afterwards. But in France things are designed in advance to work so that there isn’t an adversarial readjustment.
Today’s legislation won overwhelming approval in Parliament. Following the Charlie Hebdo attacks, did lawmakers feel they had very little political mileage to gain by opposing this law?
There is genuinely a national consensus that part of the state’s job is to provide security and they need a law that needs to be updated to include intelligence-gathering activities that were happening before without a specific legal basis, and to update it so that it includes new communications technologies. That’s a sensible thing to do. This is not a panic reaction.
Dassault annonce de nouveaux contrats pour 2015. Pourquoi, ces déblocages soudains après de longues années de négociations ?
C’est le résultat d’années de prospection pendant lesquelles Dassault a été à la manœuvre pour essayer de vendre le Rafale. Même si cet avion a été conçu il y a longtemps, il reste dans la modernité. Contre lui, Il n’y avait plus qu’un concurrent, le Gripen (Saab) qui, depuis, a prouvé ses limites. L’Eurofighter n’est lui-même plus candidat à l’export. Il restait le F18 et le F35 américain à susciter encore des espoirs. Mais cet avion prend du retard, accroît ses coûts avec des transferts de technologie qui tardent aussi. Entre-temps, depuis la Libye en 2011, le Rafale est passé à des démonstrations pratiques et reste le seul avion multirôle en service. Aucun avion doté de telles fonctions n’est prévu à l’horizon. Même s’il n’a pas les caractéristiques du F35 ou du F22 de Boeing, du J20 ou du J 31 chinois, le Rafale fait à la fois de la reconnaissance, de la défense aérienne et de l’attaque au sol. C’est l’équivalent de trois avions, d’où l’intérêt pour les pays qui ont des flottes limitées.
Dans cette vente, la France ne doit-elle pas remercier Obama et son alliance avec l’Iran ?
On s’est retrouvés dans la même situation que lorsqu’on a commencé à exporter des Mirage dans les années soixante. À l’époque, nous vendions des avions à l’Inde, à l’Amérique du Sud, alors que nos avions étaient plus chers que leurs concurrents américains. Si ces contrats ont été conclus, c’est parce que ces pays ne voulaient pas être dépendants des États-Unis. Nous renouvelons la même situation. Il est intéressant aussi de constater qu’il y avait eu une brutale marche arrière causée par la décision du Général de Gaulle de décréter l’embargo sur les Mirage vendus à Israël. La conclusion fut un coup d’arrêt de nos ventes. Aujourd’hui, La France espère vendre à des pays opposés à l’Iran, et, de fait, les Sunnites déroulent le tapis rouge à François Hollande. La diplomatie française est plus sur le reculoir que les États-Unis et leur alliance avec l’Iran. Les Américains ont une position plus pragmatique en reconnaissant l’Iran comme un grand pays. Et les États-Unis n’ont pas grand-chose à vendre qui soit réellement adapté aux besoins des pays du Golfe. Permettez-moi de rappeler une chose : la France a hurlé contre l’existence de la peine de mort en Indonésie, mais que fait-elle sinon vendre des avions de chasse à des pays qui appliquent cette sentence ! Évitons la morale.
Reste que c’est une bonne nouvelle pour Dassault, Thales et Safran ?
J’espère que ce sera une bonne nouvelle. Faut-il que les Égyptiens honorent leur contrat ! Pour l’heure, on leur donne des avions en échange d’un prêt. Soyons objectifs jusqu’au bout sur les conditions de financement, car nous vendons à un régime qui n’est pas d’une solidité totale.
Im Nordosten Myanmars sind Kämpfe zwischen den Streitkräften der Zentralregierung und einer aus ethnischen Chinesinnen und Chinesen bestehenden Rebellengruppe wiederaufgeflammt. Auf den ersten Blick ist dies nur eine Randnotiz der internationalen Politik. Doch der Konflikt zeigt europäischen Beobachterinnen und Beobachtern, dass China – sonst derzeit vor allem aufgrund der Streitigkeiten im Südchinesischen Meer in den Schlagzeilen – in bestimmten Fällen zurückhaltender agieren kann: Die Lage in dem kulturell und wirtschaftlich chinesisch geprägten Gebiet böte einer auf nationalistische Emotionen setzenden Führung in Beijing einen plausiblen Anlass, um als Schutzmacht ethnischer Chinesinnen und Chinesen im Ausland aufzutreten. Im Falle Myanmars ist Beijing jedoch offenbar bereit, nationale Befindlichkeiten zugunsten langfristiger strategischer Ziele zurückzustellen. Das chinesische Verhalten beruht auf einem pragmatischen strategischen Ansatz Beijings: Wichtige Nachbarn sollen nicht irritiert werden.
The negotiations on TTIP, trade aspects of the EU's Eastern Partnership, and preparations for the WTO's 10th ministerial conference in Nairobi are the main subjects of the Foreign Affairs Council on Trade, on 7 May 2015 in Brussels