Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Council of the European Union press release on PESCO has a promotional video that opens with the line, "In a troubled world, citizens want the EU to offer them more protection", followed by images of fighter jets, drones, Apache helicopters, armed troops running off military transport helicopters, aircraft carriers and warships, all to the tune of the kind of aspirational and emotive modern classical one would get on an advertisement for a new Mercedes car. Apart from that, there is no detail as to what exactly it will mean for those who sign up, especially in terms of actual warfare. The only thing that is obvious is that the arms industry is about to make even more money because, for some vague reason, we all need to be stocking up on guns and locking up our borders. What is this vague threat? Why does the EU need all these warships, fighter jets and aircraft carriers? The EU was set up with the aim of ending the frequent and bloody wars between neighbours which culminated in the Second World War, or so it says on the European Union website. Now, it seems that if one wants to stay on the right side of the EU, one must sign up to enrich its arms producers. The German Defence Minister, Ms Von der Leyen, the main driver behind PESCO along with the French, said in 2014, "I believe that joint armed forces would be a logical consequence of an increasingly close military co-operation in Europe". After PESCO was set up in November, she said this was, "another step in the direction of the army of Europeans".

We seem to be the only country that is in denial and refusing to acknowledge that an EU army is being created. We are struggling to pay members of the Defence Forces a proper wage and some 335 Army personnel left voluntarily in 2017 alone, yet we are now going to join PESCO, which states that members must commit to year-on-year real increases in defence spending and investment. The speed at which the Council of the European Union has made this turn towards beefing up EU defence capabilities is frightening. In the space of seven months we have gone from arguing about €90 million of EU money being spent on defence research over a period of three years to the European Commission in June proposing the mobilisation of €40 billion by 2027 for research and development of weapons and military hardware through the European Defence Fund.

Our neutral status is already on a shaky footing. The lack of warning, debate and detail around joining this new military group, when we can join any time in the future, give us good grounds for fearing that this could be the final nail in the last notions of Irish neutrality. This matter is going to committee today and will be debated and voted on tomorrow. I did not hear one radio station mention it this morning and the public does not even know this is happening. There should be a proper debate in the public realm as well. Given that should take some time, I do not believe there should be a vote before Christmas. It is unfair to do so, given the people are, generally, unaware it is even taking place.

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