15 Amendments of Reinhard BÜTIKOFER related to 2015/2037(INI)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas Member States have agreed on the need to develop a European market for defence equipment and services; whereas the European Council has even called for the establishment of an EU-wide security of supply regime; whereas adequate capabilities and supply of equipment and the strategic autonomyengthening of strategic capabilities of the EU are of crucial importance for the security of the Union and that of its neighbourhood;
Amendment 8 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas the lack of consolidation, cost- efficiency and transparency in European defence markets means that external dependencies in the European defence sector are increasing at a dangerous rate, at a time of multiple and direct threats to European security which are unprecedented since the end of the Cold War; whereas a European defence market in the sense of a single European market does not yet exist and currently one can speak only of the co-existence of 28 national defence markets on the territory of the European Union;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Remains concerned by the widespread and largely uncoordinated cuts to the defence budgets in most Member States; is of the view that this lack of coordination, the structural inefficiency, poor transparency and the wide spread corruption puts the Union at risk by relinquishing strategic assets and capabilities and by forfeiting the opportunities that the coordination of defence policies and the pooling and sharing of defence assets could bring as regards the fulfilment of the EU’'s strategic autonomecurity, prosperity and peace in line with Article 21 of the Lisbon Treaty, its security of supply and the defence of its citizens and interests;
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Warns of worrying developments in the European defence markets that are increasing external dependencies in the European defence sector at a time of an increasingly challenging security environment; warns, in particular, of the combination of Member States’ declining' uncoordinated defence budgets decisions, corruption, misuse, persisting market fragmentation despite new internal market rules, the growing dependence of the defence industry on extra-EU exports and increased foreign investment in Europe’s defence sector, yielding control of strategic national and European defence industries, assets and technologies;
Amendment 62 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Reiterates its call to the HR/VP and Council for the development of an EU Common Position on the use of armed drones, giving utmost importance to respect for human rights and international humanitarian law and addressing issues such as the legal framework, proportionality, accountability, the protection of civilians and transparency; urges the EU, once again, to ban the development, production and use of fully autonomous weapons which enable strikes to be carried out without human intervention;
Amendment 66 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Believes that the years of underfundedmismanagement and uncoordinated national defence budgets decisions in Europe must be offset by increased cooperation and coordination among Member States, including through the articulation of defence budget policies and the coordination of strategic choices concerning the acquisition of military and dual-use equipment in line with transparent public procurement standards; reiterates its call for demand consolidation across the EU, this being the only means of reaching critical mass in order to sustain a competitive and independent EDTIB; stresses that maintaining a strong and autonomousdeveloping an efficient and transparent EDTIB is a key element for Europe’'s ability to protect its citizens, interests and values, in line with the objectives of the Treaty and to fulfil its responsibilities as a global security provider, as highlighted by the Vice-President of the Commission / High- Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR); calls on the Commission to develop an industrial strategy which defines key capabilities on which an EDTIB could be built;
Amendment 72 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Recalls that the 28 EU Member States are still the world's number two when it comes to both defence spending and arms exports; believes that this fact shows that the EU Member States and the Union still play a key role in global arms sales and defence procurement; considers a combined annual defence spending of 190 Billion EUR an enormous amount of tax payer's money; also recalls that numerous recent studies showed that the main problem lies in the fact that in many of the 28 EU Member States defence budgets are being spent in a very inefficient way leading to long delays, higher costs and in many cases to helicopters, fighter jets and other technology being not operational although brand new; stresses the need to deeply restructure the relationships between national defence administrations and defence industries and to introduce strict qualitative criteria for the output of procurement projects; is convinced that the current focus on higher defence budgets will only lead to further waste of tax payer's money without significantly strengthening the armed forces;
Amendment 79 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Demands that cooperation and the pooling and sharing of initiatives be given priority and that incentives – in particular tax incentives – be created to this end; welcomes the work of the European Defence Agency (EDA) on a pooled procurement mechanism and expects it to contain measures to politically incentivise the cooperative acquisition of and support for defence equipment;
Amendment 85 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
Amendment 87 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Warns that European defence companies, due to Cold War overcapacities, are increasingly compensating for their reduced turnover in Europe through extra-EU exports at the cost of engaging in ruinous competition, transferring sensitive technologies and intellectual property rights to their future competitors and moving production outside the EU, thus compromising Europe’'s security of supply and increasing the risks of violating the Common Position on Arms Exports and fostering armed violenceundermining the eight criteria of the Common Position on Arms Exports and contributing to armed violence, regional instability, human rights abuses, war crimes and conflict in other regions; believes that exposing the EU to the risk of the EDTIB being dependent on customers in third powers with different strategic interests constitutes a serious strategic mistake;
Amendment 101 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Urges Member States to comply with the principles of the common position and to report fully and regularly on the state of their defence equipment exports to third countries; calls on the Council and the VP/HR to identify the reasons for Member States’' incomplete compliance with the reporting obligation in the context of the COARM annual report on arms exports and to implement a new mechanism that may fill that gap; recalls that adherence to the common position is fundamental to the fulfilment of EU principles and values, particularly in the field of international human rights law and international humanitarian law and its responsibilities as regards global security;
Amendment 109 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Notes that while the growing importance of dual-use technologies offers benefits in terms of synergies between the defence sector and commercial production, it also makes it dependent on civilian supply chains, which often base their production outside Europe; warns also of the potential security risks associated with the growing internationalisation of industrial supply chains and the effects that changes in ownership in the national defence sector may have on the security of supply in the EU and also the heightened risks for European and national security; urges the Commission to publish the Green Paper on the control of defence and sensitive security industrial capabilities which was announced in its Communication 2013/542 and Implementation Roadmap of 24 June 2014 for the end of 2014;
Amendment 115 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Welcomes the work of the EDA and the Commission on an EU-wide security of supply (SoS) regime, as mandated by the European Council, and looks forward to a roadmap with specific steps to be presented for endorsement in June 2015; believes that past methodologies used by the Commission such as mapping and monitoring failed; stresses the need to focus on new approaches on how to ensure the free circulation of military equipment for the armed forces of the 28 EU Member States;
Amendment 119 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
Amendment 127 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Considers mutual assurances of SoS between the Member States to be a fundamental element in the construction of an integrated European defence market; welcomes the EDA’'s updated framework arrangement on SoS as an instrument which strengthens mutual confidence, but noteregrets that it does not create any legal obligations; takes the view that the EU- wide SoS regime needs to be based on legislation, and in particular on the full implementation of the directive on intra- EU transfers in order to remove barriers to the movement of defence products inside the EU;