Re: Looks like Clegg and others have been telling lies about EU Army

Hi

I can understand where you are coming from.

Treaties are written in such a way that what is written in say Article 40, is subject to what is written in subsequent Articles.

The relevant text is here.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conte...12M045&from=EN

Re: Looks like Clegg and others have been telling lies about EU Army

You are having a laugh.

The EU's absolute miscalculation in the Ukraine and it's utter failure in dealing with the migrant crisis and the EU members who are also in Nato's failure to maintain their 2% defence spending commitment leaves me with absolutely no confidence in Brussel's competence to operate an EU armed force and to take over our Foreign Policy.

It's another attempt by the EU to become a superpower to supersede Nato and the US.

So glad we are leaving this shambles!

Re: Looks like Clegg and others have been telling lies about EU Army

It's far from clear I agree but the overall emphasis appears to be one of establishing that "EU Army".

I'm not a proponent of Wikipedia per say but this article seems to explain better how Juncker & Co are pushing hard to establish this EU force and how Britain and others have thus far objected/obstructed it.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milita...European_Union

"Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union provides for substantial military integration within the institutional framework of the union:

- Article 42.2 provides for complete integration, which would require unanimity in the European Council of heads of state or government and has as such been blocked by the United Kingdom, which is the main opponent of EU defence integration, in particular. (The United Kingdom is however scheduled to withdraw from the union in 2019.)

- Article 42.6 enables the armed forces of a subset of member states to establish permanent structured cooperation (PESCO) between themselves. As of 2017 this option has not been used, despite calls by prominent leaders such as former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt for a common defence for the Union.

However the debate has intensified by the standoff between the EU and Russia over Ukraine, Brexit and the presidency of Donald Trump in the US. With new calls for an EU military by EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and by other European leaders and policy makers like the head of the German parliament's foreign policy committee Norbert Röttgen, saying an EU army was "a European vision whose time has come". The mutual defence clause, Article 42.7, was invoked for the first time in November 2015 following the terrorist attacks in Paris, which were described by French President François Hollande as an attack against Europe as a whole."

Re: Looks like Clegg and others have been telling lies about EU Army

Yes, and I have said as much elsewhere.

I foresee the EU Army being created in the not-too-distant future and, at the same time, the EU withdrawing from NATO.

That would leave the UK, the US and Canada remaining in NATO and the rest of Europe on their own with their EU Army.

How on earth the EU would hope to defend itself from a concerted push by Russia, which is the only realistic threat to them, without the support of America is a joke. Even if they decided to spend at least the specified 2% of their GDP, they would still not stand a chance.

As I mentioned elsewhere, my opinion is that this EU Army would be created solely to keep order amongst the EU nations and prevent any future intentions of them following us to freedom.