Military - in brief (23)
01 August 2008
EU: French priorities for European security
In a confidential five-page document circulated to EU governments France has stated its European security priorities for the coming six month EU presidency. The proposals include the expansion of the European core military staff in Brussels into a permanent operational headquarters for missions abroad, common EU funding of military operations, a European fleet of military transport aircraft, European military satellites, a European defence college and the development of exchange programs for officers amongst EU states. The British government has always resisted the headquarters idea. However according to
The Guardian newspaper that obtained the document, sources said that the UK and French governments are already quietly negotiating over the proposals and "Washington is privately pressing the Brown government to reach a deal with the French". The French had kept their proposals private in a vain attempt to safeguard the ratification of the new Lisbon treaty in the Irish referendum. In an additional protocol to the treaty a scheme known as Permanent Structured Cooperation is elaborated, whereby a core group of nations, in which Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland would participate (G6), will push ahead with a stronger EU military force and a higher level of arms expenditure. Nick Witney, former chief executive of the European Defence Agency (EDA) called it "a sort of defence eurozone". Other countries could later join.
Le Figaro 31.1.08 (Pierre Lellouche); EUobserver 15.2.08; Defense News 28.4.08 (Julian Hale); EurActiv 6.6.08; Daily Mail 6.6.08; The Guardian 7.6 08 (Ian Traynor)
UK: Mothers fail to force inquiry into Iraq invasion
The mothers of two British soldiers killed in the war on Iraq lost their attempt to force the government to hold a public inquiry into Britain's involvement in April. The House of Lords unanimously rejected the challange brought by Rose Gentle and Beverley Clarke, ruling that families did not have a right under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to force the government to hold an independent investigation. One of the nine judges, Baroness Hale of Richmond, said: "...if my child had died in this way, that [an indepndent inquiry] is exactly what I would want. I would want to feel that she had died fighting for a just cause." However, she agreed "with sorrow" with the other judges that the lawfulness of military action had no immediate bearing and that there was no duty in Article 2 ECHR on states not to send soldiers to an unlawful war.
Times 10.4.08