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A SENIOR IRISH Military officer who will be part of the Irish team leading the EU Military Committee says that Europe has realised the importance of security.
Colonel Tim O’Brien is part of a team of nine military experts selected to go to Brussels as Defence Forces chief of staff Sean Clancy prepares to take up the chair of the EU military committee – essentially, Europe’s top military job.
Clancy will take up the role as head of the EUMC in this summer – bringing O’Brien and the rest of his cabinet as they start a three-year term.
O’Brien, in an interview with The Journal, said that security and defence had now become the “number one focus” for the EU.
“I think Europe as a continent, is now realising that security and defence is an important topic that has to be discussed and has to be brought into the public.
“And the reasons for that are clear.”
The European Union is currently gripped in a major effort to build consensus on a programme to up defence capability.
This week the EU released its much anticipated White Paper on European Defence which laid out a raft of dynamic measures.
The concerns come in the wake of a Donald Trump presidency that has grown closer to Russia than the traditional geopolitical alignment with Europe.
The EUMC is a grouping which has all the Chiefs of Defence (CHOD) from the 27 member states – it reports to civilian leadership Delphine Pronk in the Political and Security Committee and ultimately the EU’s Foreign Affairs head Kaja Kallas.
Clancy’s role is ultimately as an advisor and conduit for those military leaders to offer advice and support to civilian decision makers – he will also be leading missions that the EU has undertaken.
Among the Irish military personnel have been selected to go to Brussels, the man who will manage that team most closely is O’Brien, who will be promoted to will be promoted to Brigadier General as part of the move.
Speaking to The Journal, the officer said efforts to ramp up Europe’s security capabilities date back to the EU’s forerunner organisations in the years following the Second World War.
“There’s always been a concept, going back to the Western European Union, that Europe as an entity should be capable of responding to multiple crises at the same time, conventional war, a humanitarian disaster, a peacekeeping force.
“As leaders across Europe – both in the EU and heads of the various member states – prioritise defence and support from Ukraine “the military pillar is ready to support them with the advice they require,” he said.
Civilian Sources we spoke to this week said that Seán Clancy and his team are facing into a very challenging situation as they head to Brussels.
Inside the halls of the EU, according to those knowledgeable about the political atmosphere there, the outgoing chair of the EUMC Austrian General Robert Brieger has suffered tensions with civilian leadership.
The cause of that, the civilian Brussels sources said, is the slow pace of developing a consensus led preparation of advice for civilian leaders. It is also understood that the Austrian team has also struggled to make connections.
Meanwhile former Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas has taken over from Josep Borrell as the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. She is also Vice-President of the European Commission and is known as a robust advocate for stronger more dynamic defence structures in the Union.
The issue, according to one Brussels insider, is that Kallas was not happy with the EUMC because of the length of time it took to build a consensus for advice and that as there was a difficult relationship with Brieger – she slotted in her own military advisor.
That is the fraught political atmosphere that Clancy and his team will be tasked with addressing. Multiple sources, both here in Ireland and abroad, said the first job will be to repair those connections.
O’Brien and two other people on the team we interviewed this week, Naval Chief Petty Officer Cian McPartland and Air Corps Flight Quartermaster Tracey Walsh, did not discuss that political side but did say they are looking forward to getting stuck in.
O’Brien said that his focus is managing Clancy’s office but he said he is fully cognisant of the fact that Europe and the EU is gripped in concerns about Russian activities, hybrid threats and individual member states worrying about the status of their security.
O’Brien, who has extensive overseas experience, said that those issues around European defence is now front and centre.
“This [deployment] wasn’t supposed to be into an area of crisis,” he said.
“The role of the military staff here, when you have the European Council regularly discussing security and defence matters well, then the military voice they get is going to be extremely important and perhaps more important in this three year mandate.
The operations of the Irish led mission is broken down into several “cells” – they include policy, strategic communications and developing military advice. O’Brien stresses that Clancy and his team will relinquish their direct guidance from the Irish Government and they will be led by the EU institutions.
The non-commissioned ranks will be represented in the nine person team – McPartland and Walsh working in administrative roles for the coming three years.
Walsh, who joined the Defence Forces first in the Army in the 1990s and then moved to the Air Corps, said people are not aware of how significant the appointment is for Ireland.
She has a long history of working with Seán Clancy when he was a helicopter pilot.
“I suppose the first thing on this, it’s something very historical. It’s something that I believe that maybe the country doesn’t realise the importance of it or or how important the role the General is taking up.”
McPartland, who normally spends his work day on Naval operations and working in the communications and information technology section in Haulbowline, has also served overseas.
He said that he was “shocked” when he got the phone call to go – he said the historic nature of the mission was not lost on him.
“Things are changing around the world and Europe is playing a more prominent part. There’s a determination by the whole Cabinet to hit the ground running and get into the guts of it as quick as we can.”
The team will take up their role on 1 June when Clancy arrives.
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