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Statewatch/TNI report on the EU Security Research Programme: "Big Brother" meets market fundamentalism

01 January 2006

A forthcoming report from Statewatch and the Transnational Institute (TNI) examines the development of the security-industrial complex in Europe and in particular the establishment of the EU Security Research Programme (ESRP). The section on the development the ESRP is reproduced here. Spawned by the military-industrial complex, the security-industrial complex has developed as the traditional boundaries between external security (military) and internal security (security services) and law enforcement (policing) have eroded. With the global market for technologies of repression more lucrative than ever in the wake of 11 September 2001, it is on a healthy expansion course.

The story of the EU Security Research Programme is one of “Big Brother” meets market fundamentalism. It was personified by the establishment in 2003 of a “Group of Personalities” (GoP) comprised of EU officials and Europe’s biggest arms and IT companies. The GoP’s concern was a simple one: European multinationals are losing out to their U.S. competitors because the U.S. government is providing them with a billion dollars a year for security research – it recommended the EU match this level of funding to ensure a “level playing field”. The European Commission has obliged with a “preparatory” budget for security research 2004-6, with the full ESRP to begin in 2007, and appointed an EU Security Research Advisory Board to oversee the programme. This makes permanent the GoP and gives profit-making corporations an official status in the EU, shaping not just security research but security policy.

The decision to create the EU Security Research Programme (ESRP) was taken informally by the European Commission in 2003. There was no formal legislative proposal as is usual for the establishment of EU budget lines, so there was no consultation of the European and national parliaments. Instead, drawing on the experience of the EU “Strategic Aerospace Review” (the “STAR 21” report) and the “Leadership 2015 High Level Advisory Group” on the future of the European shipping industry, the European Commission decided to form a “Group of Personalities” (GoP) to oversee the development of the ESRP – or a “Group of Dr. Strangeloves” as Statewatch described them.

The “Group of Personalities”

The GoP included the Commissioners for Research and Information Society, plus, as “observers”, the Commissioners for External Relations and Trade, Mr. Solana from the Council, together will representatives of NATO, the Western European Armaments Association and the EU Military Committee. Also represented were eight multinational corporations – again including Europe’s four largest arms companies, joined now by some of Europe’s largest IT companies – and seven “research” institutions, including the Rand Corporation. Four MEPs were there as well to try to add a democratic sheen to the process. The proceedings were familiar to at least to one of them – Karl von Wogau MEP had also been a member of the European Advisory Group on Aerospace.

Each member of the GoP assigned a “sherpa”. The GoP rapporteur was Burkhard Schmitt, assistant director of the EU Institute of Security Studies (see further below) and someone described by the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute as a “proponent of free trade in the defense industry”. Schmitt was also involved with the STAR 21 report (above) and would later co-author “More Euros for European Security Policy” in von Karl von Wogau’s (Ed.) book: “The Path to European Defence”.

Given the relevance of security research and technology to EU Justice and Home Affairs policy, JHA Commissioner Vitorino was the most notable absentee, his exclusion reflecting the overall military (rather than civilian) orientation of the GoP (note also the inclusion of defence ministries and the exclusion of interior ministries). Another notable absentee, given the implications of the research, was the European Commiss