EUROPA

SUMMARY

In 2004, the European Union (EU) set up a permanent mechanism to administer the financing of common costs of operations having military implications. This mechanism, which has legal capacity and is called Athena, relates primarily to two types of operations:

• conventional EU military operations;
• military supporting actions, decided by the Council, in support of a third State or a third organisation.

Athena is managed by the following, under the authority of the Special Committee:

- an administrator, who is appointed by the Secretary-General of the Council of the EU, represents Athena’s permanent executive authority, draws up any draft budget and submits it to the Special Committee;

- an operation commander, in relation to the operation which he/she commands. He/she sends the administrator proposals for the "expenditure – operational common costs" section of the budgets and, as authorising officer, implements the appropriations relating to the above-mentioned costs;

- an accounting officer, who keeps the accounts for Athena and is responsible for proper implementation of payments, collection of revenue and recovery of amounts established as being receivable.

The Special Committee, composed of one representative of each participating Member State, is convened and chaired by the Presidency of the Council of the EU. Its members unanimously approve all Athena’s budgets and financial decisions. The Commission and contributing third States participate in the work of the committee, but do not take part in its votes.

The document draws a distinction between the "common costs at the expense of Athena whenever they are incurred" – i.e. mission expenditure, costs relative to the storage of material, etc. (in Annex I) – and those relative to the preparatory phase of an operation, for example, the incremental costs of transport and accommodation necessary for exploratory missions (Annex II).

The bulk of the operational common costs relative to the active phase of EU military operations are always borne by Athena (Annex III). This refers to the establishment of headquarters, transport costs, salaries of locally hired personnel, barracks and lodging/infrastructure, etc.

The administrator each year proposes the draft budget for the following year to the Special Committee by 31 October at the latest. The budget, drawn up with the support of each operation commander for the "operational common costs" section, must include:

• the appropriations to cover the common costs incurred in preparation for, or further to, operations;
• the appropriations to cover the operational common costs for ongoing or planned operations;
• a forecast of the revenue to cover expenditure.

With regard to covering the costs, participating third States are not required to contribute to the common costs incurred in preparation for, or further to, operations which exceed miscellaneous revenue. On the other hand, they do contribute to the operational common costs. As far as Member States are concerned, the breakdown of their contributions is determined in accordance with the gross national product scale, as specified in Article 28 of the EU Treaty.

In the case of EU Military Rapid Response operations, flexible early financing procedures are provided for to attain the level of the reference amount set by the administrator.

Background

In 2002, the Council adopted a first document (10155/02) on the financing of EU-led crisis-management operations. One year later, the EU intended to set up, by 1 March 2004, a permanent financing mechanism to assume charge of the financing of the common costs of any future Union military operation. Finally, Decision 2004/197/CFSP of 23 February created this mechanism for operations having military or defence implications. This Decision was amended on several occasions and the present document represents its final codified version.