Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-04-Speech-3-037"
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"en.20080604.15.3-037"2
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"Mr President, both of these reports assume that the Lisbon Treaty/European Constitution will be ratified, despite the fact that the result of the Irish referendum will not be known until 12 June. But of course this Parliament has already decided that it will ignore the Irish referendum if it results in a ‘no’ vote.
The European Union does not want its foreign policy and military ambitions to be subject to the will of the people of Europe’s nation states by means of referenda, because it knows very well that they will reject those ambitions if given a choice. And what ambitions they are. These reports show how the EU intends to build its military forces by such means as combining multinational forces, building common command and control structures, adopting common equipment and systems procurement policies, and implementing common communication systems. They envisage combining existing multinational forces and that there should be a standing force under EU command. And there we have the beginnings of a European standing army. These plans endanger NATO and undermine the nation states’ positions within the United Nations – which the European Union seeks to usurp.
I recently attended a security conference in Brussels in which someone posed the question: who fears the European Union? Meaning, of course, that without the threat of military force, no-one will take the EU’s foreign policy pretensions seriously. During the latter part of the Second World War, one of Stalin’s staff said that the Pope disapproved of certain of his foreign policy actions. To which Stalin replied: ‘and how many divisions does the Pope have?’
The European Union intends to have its divisions in order to enforce its will and make itself feared on the world stage. And if we want to know what that will look like, just imagine the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy repeated with guns, tanks and aeroplanes.
The only people in Europe being allowed a say on this are the Irish in their referendum of 12 June. One of the key factors influencing the minds of the Irish will be to preserve their historical policy of neutrality. But do they realise that if Lisbon is ratified neutrality will end and they will become subject to the foreign policy and military ambitions of the European Union? But they will not only lose their neutrality, they will find themselves helping to pay for soldiers and armaments to undertake military operations that they may not approve of.
They should seriously consider these things before deciding which way to vote in their referendum. The British Government and Houses of Parliament have shamefully betrayed the British people by denying them a referendum on Lisbon. Irish neutrality is at stake, but so is the very ability of Britain to defend itself."@en1
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