Activities of Antonio LÓPEZ-ISTÚRIZ WHITE related to 2021/2183(INI)
Legal basis opinions (0)
Amendments (24)
Amendment 106 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Emphasises the importance of supporting it with a 360-degree threat analysis; stresses that the Strategic Compass must be the EU’s ambitious response to this analysis, which must be subject to regular review; welcomes the call of the President of the European Commission for a EU Joint Situation Awareness Centre;
Amendment 134 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Compels Member States to reach, upon completion of the Strategic Compass, an ambitious common understanding on Articles 42(7) of the TEU and 222 of the TFEU and their relation to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty;
Amendment 160 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Deplores the actions of the coup leaders in Mali; is deeply concerned at the lack of essential state services in Mali and in the Sahel in general; expresses its deep concern at the deteriorating security in the region and the increasing involvement of our adversaries in a region that is vital to our security; notes the announcement of the reorganisation of French military action in the Sahel, in conjunction with our international and African partners; welcomes the increasing involvement of Europeans in the Takuba Task Force; welcomes the adaptation of the new extended mandate of the European Union Training Mission in Mali (EUTM Mali) to the regionalisation process; calls on the Member States to make a significant contribution to EUTM Mali’s advisory activities;
Amendment 183 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Recalls the strategic importance for European interests of the Mozambique Channel; welcomes the commitment of the Member States and the VP/HR to respond to the growing terrorist threat in the area; notes the forthcoming establishment of an EUTMwelcomes the decision of the Council to launch the European Union Military Training Mission in Mozambique (EUTM Mozambique); welcomes the deployment of the European Peace Facility to cover the common costs of EUTM Mozambique and to provide military equipment; calls on the Council and the EEAS to make the best use of the European Peace Facility and take advantage of this experience for the improvement and expansion of the European Peace Facility in the future;
Amendment 249 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Is deeply concerned about the low force generation for operations and missions, and urges the Member States to address this matter as soon as possible; calls on the 21 common EU-NATO members to apply the ‘single set of forces’ principle by declaring the same pool of potentially available capabilities for planning purposes within the EU and NATO ;considers that third-country participation in CSDP operations and missions must always be in line with European interests and values; calls on the EU to provide staff in missions and operations with appropriate equipment and training to become more alert and more resilient under less permissive conditions;
Amendment 258 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Is concerned about the increasing information manipulation, disinformation and hybrid threats affecting several theatres; calls for a structured response to these threats by CSDP missiondestabilizing whole regions and delegitimizing the EU’s missions abroad; calls for a structured response to these threats by CSDP missions; urges the EU and its Member States to develop their Strategic Communication capabilities;
Amendment 280 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Welcomes the cooperation capacity of European armies in helping citizens in the fight against the pandemic in 2020; calls on the EU and the Member States to set out detailed arrangements for the implementation of Article 44 TEU so as to enable the Union to respond rapidly and effectively to crises; welcomes the positive pooling and coordinating role played by air forces during the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular as regards transfers for medical treatment and deliveries of equipment between Member States; underlines that, as highlighted by the EEAS Climate Change and Defence Roadmap, increasingly frequent natural disasters, global pandemics, or human- made disasters, just as cyber and hybrid threats, are add-ons to the existing security challenges and hence require additional resources; encourages the Union and its Member States to develop their capabilities to address these new challenges; stresses that addressing these new security challenges should not divert resources from traditional, conventional defence and security capabilities;
Amendment 290 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20 a (new)
Paragraph 20 a (new)
20a. Calls on the EU and the Member States to set out detailed arrangements for the implementation of Article 44 TEU so as to enable the Union to respond rapidly and effectively to crises;
Amendment 300 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. Supports the ambition of creating a ‘rapid entry force’; recalls the existence of battlegroups and the need to make them credible by conducting regular field exercises; deplores the Member States’ lack of commitment to the battlegroups; criticises the fact that only one, led by Italy, is operational in 2021; laments the weakness of the planning for 2022 and 2023 and calls for the member states’ increased commitment towards EU’s military capacities; believes that the new ‘rapid entry force’ should either be the result of the ambitious reform of the battlegroups or completely replace the battlegroups, in order to avoid more capability duplications in the EU’s CSDP;
Amendment 309 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21 a (new)
Paragraph 21 a (new)
21a. Calls on the Council and the EEAS to study how to best articulate the deployment of the EU battlegroups or a new ‘rapid entry force’, the implementation of Article 44 of the TEU, and the still unexploited operational component of PESCO; expects that the articulation of these elements must enable the EU and its Member States to rapidly and effectively respond to crises in its neighbourhood, with military means, and conduct the tasks set forth in the Article 43.1 of the TEU, also known as Petersberg Tasks;
Amendment 318 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. Welcomes the establishment of the European Peace Facility (EPF) in 2020 and calls for it to be made operational swiftly; laments the very significant reduction of the budget of the European Peace Facility for the current Multiannual Financial Framework; stresses that the requisite equipment and training must be delivered in the relevant theatres of operation; undertakes to ensure coherence and complementarity between CSDP missions and operations, the Union’s financial instruments (NDICI) and the EPF; compels the EEAS to closely monitor and ensure the good use of the material delivered to our partners under the European Peace Facility;
Amendment 327 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 a (new)
Paragraph 22 a (new)
22a. Welcomes the fact that the Council Decision (CFSP) 2021/509 of 22 March 2021 establishing the EPF, enables the European Peace Facility to contribute to the financing of the EU Battlegroups, but believes this not to be enough; is deeply disappointed that this Council decision did not change the manner in which common costs of EU operations are shared and administered; believes that the principle “costs lie where they fall” is, to a large extent, responsible for the low force generation capacity of the EU; compels the Council to significantly raise the share of common costs of EU operations, from the current mere 5-10%; is convinced that greater common funding for operations is a condition sine qua non for the EU to become a credible defence actor on the operational domain, especially when it comes to crisis management;
Amendment 346 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. Calls on the Union to build on and develop its CSDP naval operations in order to provide a strong platform to further develop a more permanent operational commitment at international level; calls on maritime Member States to develop and increase their military naval capabilities to address both asymmetric and conventional threats to maritime security, freedom of navigation and the EU’s blue economy; considers it very important for the Union to maintain a favourable balance of power in the seas surrounding it; calls for consideration to be given to the possibility of organising regular naval exercises to enhance interoperability;
Amendment 352 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24 a (new)
Paragraph 24 a (new)
24a. Calls on the EU to increasingly exercise credible and efficient maritime presence in non-European waters, such as the Indo-Pacific, the Gulf of Guinea, the Barents Sea and the North Sea, in order to ensure and safeguard Europe’s international stance and values;
Amendment 386 #
27a. Recognises the threat of an active, military capable Russia and China in the European Southern and Eastern Neighbourhood; calls for increased European coordination to assess, analyse and prevent further hybrid attacks from both international actors;
Amendment 392 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Calls on the Union to develop a space defence strategy, which is essential for its strategic autonomy in outer space; encourages the Union to improve its situational awareness and geo-intelligence support; stresses the importance of the Union having its own launchers; insists that the Union should lead the way in strengthening the increasingly contested area of international space lawsupports initiatives aimed at boosting EU space policy, including the ambitious new EU space programme, which must seek to protect current and past European space assets; encourages the Union to improve its situational awareness and geo-intelligence support; stresses the importance of the Union having its own launchers; realises that the domain of outer space has the potential to quickly turn into a military arena if the right international legal instruments are not put in place; insists that the Union should lead the way in strengthening the increasingly contested area of international space law; calls on the Union to work towards a comprehensive European and international legal instrument, to regulate conflicts in space;
Amendment 454 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34 a (new)
Paragraph 34 a (new)
34a. Regrets the very significant reduction of the budget for military mobility for the current Multiannual Financial Framework, from the initial proposals;
Amendment 456 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34 b (new)
Paragraph 34 b (new)
34b. Compels the commission to continue its efforts to counter the fragmentation of the EU’s internal market for defence products, which is still leading to unnecessary duplication and the multiplication of inefficiencies in defence spending by the Member States; underscores the importance of a strong, competitive and innovative European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB), combined with the emergence of an EU defence equipment market which fully respects internal market rules, and the EU’s Common Position on arms exports;
Amendment 457 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34 c (new)
Paragraph 34 c (new)
34c. Welcomes the idea proposed by the President of the European Commission on waving Value Added Taxes when buying defence equipment developed and produced in Europe and encourages her to implement this idea in a way that will not only increase the acquisition of European military capabilities, thus reducing our strategic dependencies, but also to promote their joint development by Member-States;
Amendment 477 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36 a (new)
Paragraph 36 a (new)
Amendment 566 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 42
Paragraph 42
42. Welcomes the establishment of an EU-US strategic dialogue on security and defenceUnderlines the need to strengthen EU-US transatlantic cooperation on the basis of an equal partnership, based on shared values and objectives, while respecting the other party’s autonomy, interests and aspirations; welcomes the establishment of an EU-US strategic dialogue on security and defence; welcomes in particular the ongoing or upcoming EU-US dialogues on China, Russia and the Indo-Pacific; stresses the operational dimension of the partnership and the importance of ensuring that the Union maintains its strategic autonomy, in particular as regards the United States’ International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR); welcomes, in this regard, the involvement of third countries in the EDA on the basis of administrative agreements, provided that it is accompanied by legally binding counterparts and safeguards to protect the defence and security interests of the Union and its Member States;
Amendment 584 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43
Paragraph 43
43. Calls for a stronger NATO supportunderpinned by a stronger European Union, and wishes to see very tangible development in the EU-NATO partnership; strongly welcomes the announcement by the Commission President von der Leyen at her September State of the Union Speech of a new EU-NATO Joint Declaration before the end of 2021; considers that the work being carried out in parallel on both the EU’s Strategic Compass and the expected update of NATO’s Strategic Concept represents a unique opportunity to establish clear priorities and a clear a labour division, as well as identify additional synergies in order to strengthen the transatlantic bond and further EU-NATO cooperation; calls on all actors involved to use this opportunity to link these processes at both political and technical level; calls, in this context, for NATO’s new strategic concept to be coherent with the EU’s Strategic Compass;
Amendment 611 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 45
Paragraph 45
45. Calls for closer relations with non- traditional partners in the Indo-Pacific region (India, Japan, Australia), and in specific policy sectors (cybersecurity, hybrid, maritime, outer space etc.), and with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); recognises that partnerships with non-traditional countries is only in benefit of EU’s defence and security strategy; cautions against limiting EU’s security country- relations to the EU-US partnership;
Amendment 636 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 46
Paragraph 46
46. Laments the absence of a security and defence cooperation partnership between the UK and the EU on account of the British Government’s lack of interest, despite the assurances given in the political declaration; nonetheless, encourages the Union to keep striving 'for an intricate security and defence relation with the United Kingdom; calls for a stronger partnership to be built with relevant African organisations, such as the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and G5 Sahel;