John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

As the Minister knows, the EU constitution has not yet been approved and yet the European Defence Agency is up and running. Will the Minister indicate on what legal basis it is running or is it in a legal limbo? He says this was an intergovernmental decision. Is it not extraordinary that a move of such significance was not debated in this House? Is this considered to be so unpalatable for many Irish people that it was decided to try to hide it away until such time as the Green Party tried to expose it?

On the question of spending, as the Minister probably knows, I was on the defence working group of the Convention on the Future of Europe. It was clear there that the idea behind this was not just to co-ordinate or spend better, but also to spend more. Will the Minister agree that as a consequence we will have to increase spending? That is precisely the idea, to make Europe more significant militarily on the international stage.

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