The EU needs to stop playing soldiers
Posted, July 18, 2011 @ 15:00
A senior Conservative MEP has condemned proposals which would see British troops taking orders from a European Union Military headquarters.
The idea was outlined today by Labour peer Baroness Ashton, High Representative of the European Council, during a meeting with foreign ministers of EU countries - but immediately blocked by William Hague.
As the EU's foreign and security policy leader, Lady Ashton is pushing for the creation of a permanent headquarters to command and control European military operations.
But Conservative Defence Spokesman in the European Parliament, Geoffrey Van Orden, said:
“The defence and security issues that confront us - Libya, Afghanistan, international terrorism, piracy - are too serious to be playthings for the EU’s political ambitions. The EU brings no additional military capabilities to the table, takes on no additional European share of the transatlantic defence burden. Instead, it is yet another call on the same diminishing pool of national armed forces and is a serious distraction from NATO, which should be the main focus of international military commitment for the democracies.
“While NATO struggles to persuade its member states to contribute to strategically vital missions, such as Libya, the EU continues to spend money and effort copying NATO’s structures and desperately trying to find military tasks on which it can stick its badge.
“It is ridiculous that co-ordination mechanisms between the EU and NATO are now required to enable more or less the same nations to talk to themselves in different locations in Brussels”.
“NATO has a large, long-established and well-practised planning staff at its SHAPE headquarters in Mons and an operational command presence in the UK and other countries. Now the EU wants to duplicate this with its own Operational Headquarters. Although its motive is otherwise, it tries to justify this by claiming some unique amalgam of civil and military capabilities. I congratulate our Ministers on refusing to cave in.
“If the EU wants to be useful, it should focus its efforts on civil matters that might complement the military efforts of NATO. The EU should stop trying to play soldiers and misleading our allies about what it is trying to do."