Statements by Arnaud Danjean, Didier Lenoir, Head of Integrated Strategic Planning Unit, Crisis Management Planning Directorate (CMPD) and Daniel Keohane, Research Fellow, EU Institute for Security Studies, during a public hearing on the EU Civil-Military Cooperation - A Comprehensive Approach at the EP Sub-Committee on Security and Defence.

exchange of views

Subcommittee on Security and Defence

common security and defence policy (T)

DANJEAN, Arnaud (EPP, FR)

EU Civil-Military Cooperation - A Comprehensive Approach: extracts from the public hearing

SOUNDBITE (French), Arnaud DANJEAN (EPP, FR), There are operations to decide uregently. How to decide on a moral point of view , if you have to intervene, like it was the case in the Balkans - or if you wait that everybody will aggree. If you wait for an unanimity may be you will not act. So sometimes it is better to act to limit the damages.

SOUNDBITE (French), Didier Lenoir, Head of Integrated Strategic Planning Unit, Crisis Management Planning Directorate (CMPD), There is allways a possibility to make a distinction between prevention and how to handle a conflict and peace enforcement. There is also a logic to go immediately to more robust action. So there is also continuity in this procedures.My french reaction is, who we say in French: We need to evaluate. De facto it is not the case. We are focussed on strategic review on Afghanistan, Iraq and other issues. SO it seems to me strange that the EU will give up its main idea.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel Keohane, Research Fellow, EU Institute for Security Studies, Paris, "We need to ensure, that we get that right, that if a decision is taken to act, that we have the procedures, the frameworks, the capacities, the institutions, to act."

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel Keohane, Research Fellow, EU Institute for Security Studies, Paris, It is correct to raise the question what the EU does in conflict prevention. Everyone nows that conflict prevention is better than to cure. While the EU has been spending more in recent years - from 5% to 13% in 2008 - but we can still do better.