Dr Andrew Murrison MP is a Shadow Defence Minister. His 18-year career
in the Royal Navy included service with Standing Naval Force Atlantic
(STANAVFORLANT) and Channel (STANAVFORCHAN).
NATO’s 60th birthday bash this weekend was completely eclipsed by the G20, inevitably. Nevertheless, it was an important reaffirmation of the transatlantic alliance that defines our most successful and enduring of partnerships. But moves in Brussels to reconfigure military assets under the star spangled banner of the EU present a serious challenge to the organisation.
NATO arose in response to a clear military threat. In contrast, the nascent EU military is simply the natural extension of ‘ever closer union.’ It is entirely political. Why else would Brussels be so interested in process and so little exercised by defence deliverables? It seems that the state building psyche of Brussels demands more than flags, passports and a currency. After all, even the tiniest of nation states has an army of sorts.
Enter the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and the defence clauses of the Lisbon Treaty that seek to legitimise the fledgling defence institutions of the EU, extend Qualified Majority Voting to defence and security matters and, most worrying of all, introduce an element of supra-national determination into an area that had previously been robustly intergovernmental.
Emboldened by the language of Lisbon, the European Parliament approved a report in January by the committee on foreign affairs under Karl von Wogau demanding an ‘integrated European Armed Force’, EU ‘strategic autonomy’, an ‘autonomous and permanent EU Operational Headquarters’ and something called ‘Synchronised Armed Forces Europe.’ What are we to make of all that?
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