Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-01-Speech-3-074"
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"en.20000301.5.3-074"2
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"Mr President, I seem to recall from my study of European history, that the 1809 Convention of Sintra was a controversial peace agreement which probably lengthened rather than shortened the Napoleonic wars and nearly cost the Duke of Wellington his job. I hope this is not an omen for this Sintra Agreement.
That said, I would like to congratulate the high representative on the progress that has been made so far. But it has to be admitted that much of what he said is the progress in institutional matters, and the real test of the European defence identity will be in its ability to produce capability and capacity, rather than nicely formulated institutions.
And, to that end, I am not clear as to the extent to which we have progressed on developing heavy lift capacity to be able to get these 60 000 troops into operation, or what progress we have made on autonomous intelligence capacity, particularly given the American statements that they are not giving intelligence to Europeans until they can deal with security. We have all heard some of the tales emanating from the Council of Ministers building in Brussels.
To what extent are we going to get some form of convergence on defence expenditure, because some Member States spend considerably more than others. And indeed, some Member States are not geared for mobility. They are very static in their military forces, and unsuitable for this sort of warfare.
Can I perhaps also turn to Mr Patten as well and ask, in terms of the conflict prevention work we are going to be doing, to what extent will it be possible for us to look at long-term conflict-causing situations such as environmental degradation and shortage of water and then incorporate them into mainstream EU policies, particularly in development, because there is no point trying to rapidly respond to something we have had years to put right.
And finally, can I also endorse Mrs Schroedter’s comments that we do need to have a Parliamentary dimension in this defence development. We cannot leave it simply to governments."@en1
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