375 José Díaz Toribio Moving through a european defence landscape... logic, was influenced by the political and institutional context, although the political situation and internal development led to a new conceptual framework. At the “Capacity Conference”, it was concluded that the HHG was not the right approach because the European countries continue to reduce military spending, the voluntary nature of contributions make it impossible to secure the required capability and the HHG is therefore proving ineffective in this context. It was then that a new conceptual framework was approved - the “Headline Goal 2010” (HG 2010) – in which qualitative aspects were given priority over quantitative ones. While it may appear that the EU was becoming more ambitious, considering that the European Security Strategy and the HG 2010 were approved at the same time, in reality, the willingness to link capability development with the desire to make the European Union a global player was not evident. To the contrary, it would be more accurate to say that the realisation that the approach of the HHG was wrong forced the stakeholders to take a new route that led to the same destination, that is, the performance of the Petersberg tasks. The conceptual change process proved enriching for European defence policy because it led to the creation of new institutions, such as the European Defence Agency (EDA). It also led to an agreement with NATO whereby some of its assets would be used in EU missions; it prompted a process of reflection on the long-term development of common capabilities that culminated in a “light”7 planning process, and gave rise to the launch of the EU’s first civilian and military missions. The latter aspect is important because the performance of missions of its own created a new dynamic in European defence. It became necessary to equip itself with concepts for crisis management (in 2003 the - since amended – crisis management procedure was established), new structures (the Crisis Management Planning Directorate and certain intelligence capabilities, etc.) and rapid response concepts (Air and Maritime components in 2007 and Land in 2009). The missions afforded the opportunity to gain experience and learn lessons which were in turn incorporated into the development of common capacities. The HG2010 was rolled out in stages: in 2005, the Requirements Catalogue was compiled, followed by the Force Catalogue in 2006 and, in 2007, the Progress Catalogue (PC), which identified the critical capability shortfalls of the EU in the performance of missions and operations.8 The rapid reaction concept was incorporated into the HG2010 from the outset, giving rise to the creation of Battlegroups (BGs), which were declared operational on 1 January 2007. The idea was that the EU would be able to carry out two simultaneous rapid deployment operations for a set period 7 Development obtained in VV.AA, Military Capability Development in the Framework of the Common Security and Defence Policy, Cyprus, Ed. CY2012EU, 2012. 8 VV. AA, op. cit. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee
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