Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-12-15-Speech-3-618"
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"en.20101215.30.3-618"2
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"Madam President, thank you again to all those who have contributed to a very wide-ranging debate. I will, if I may, try and pick up some of the key points that were made and at least begin to give you responses to that.
Finally, structured cooperation: will it happen, what is being done? It is indeed for Member States to come forward with ideas. There are already examples where Member States, such as the UK and France, or in the letter that has come to me from the Weimar Triangle Group, have been looking at ways in which they can enhance that collaboration, partly through the European Defence Agency as well, where we have opportunities to try and develop those synergies as appropriate.
I hope and expect to see more of that in the future. Particularly I expect this with the forthcoming presidencies, especially with Poland which has made defence issues something they wish to focus on. There are no examples I can give the honourable Member that would suggest there is an opportunity to join in, but I hope that we will see objectives coming forward that enhance the possibilities of being able, in this economic crisis, to use our resources most effectively.
The first thing to say is that I am committed to trying to find ways forward in the relationship between the European Union and NATO, but I do not underestimate the political issues that sit at the heart of this question. My objective is to find practical and pragmatic ways in which increased collaboration can help support our people on the ground. The people in theatre, the people in operations, are those who are most in my thoughts when I look at how we can collaborate together. But I do so with the knowledge that Turkey has an important role to play, and I do so in the knowledge that I represent 27 Member States, and I work closely with the Member States who are most interested and affected by the issues at hand.
We are moving forward to try and achieve that as swiftly as we possibly can. But I do not underestimate the challenges, and I am always looking at and interested in ideas for how we might do that.
I accept that we want also to look very carefully at what we do ourselves and make sure that what we do is complementary and not duplicating other work. Actually the areas that we are working in are indeed very complementary. The example that was given earlier was of Ocean Shield off the coast of Somalia and the work we are doing with Operation Atalanta.
Honourable Members who have visited the area will know it is a huge expanse of sea, where there is plenty of room for complementary activity and very little risk of duplication, and indeed the services work very well together. Commander Howes who is in charge of Operation Atalanta at the present time was speaking with the defence ministers, making this very point that indeed there was a lot of connectivity in communication, but an awful lot of work that can be done satisfactorily together.
Mr Gahler raised a number of points which were not connected to this debate and I would just like to suggest to him that if he writes me a quick note about those issues I am happy to come back to him, but I did not want to take Parliament’s time this evening on issues that were not on this debate itself.
Concerning questions about missile defence, as far as I can see what happened was that a balance was found during those negotiations on NATO’s new strategic concept between the issues of missile defence and NATO’s nuclear posture. It is clear that NATO will want to retain its nuclear deterrents while keeping with the objective that it set itself on a nuclear-free world.
That is the approach we are taking today but of course we do not participate in all aspects of NATO for exactly the reasons that have been well understood in this House. We were not participating, for example, in the NATO-Russia Council meetings so it is not possible for me to comment on what happened there, only, as I have already done, to comment on the issues that came out of it.
In terms of START, the progress we have seen between the United States and Russia on demilitarisation is to be welcomed and I believe will pave the way for better coordination with NATO, which was certainly the objective that the Secretary-General has set himself."@en1
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