Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

No one in the House would wish to deprive our Irish military of real capabilities around search, unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive devices. Clearly, we want to protect our troops and ensure they have the best training, advice and skills in respect of those critical military capabilities. The Green Party supports our troops strongly and wants them to have those resources and capabilities. However, we cannot ignore the wider question about the future of Europe. The proposal before us to avail of the European Defence Agency as the vehicle to develop those skills raises real concerns.

We do not believe the future of the European Union is in stronger military integration, as some other national leaders and governments are presenting it. We do not believe the European people are clamouring for a European army or that it would serve the interests of the people in addressing the challenges we face. Yes, we should and must maintain the skills of our military personnel and do what we can to ensure that, but we must also be careful not to sacrifice the real strength of our country in terms of military intervention, which comes from our neutrality and peacekeeping experience and expertise. That is needed as well as having the ability to cope with unexploded ordnance or knowing how to clear a route of improvised explosive devices.

That is a concern we have raised on every occasion in the development of PESCO and in wider debates about the European Defence Agency. I repeat it today even on a subject where nobody would disagree we must have skills. We cannot ignore the wider strategic developments that are taking place. The forthcoming European election will be a critical election for the future of Europe. My Green Party colleagues in Europe, like our position at home, will be seeking to have strong Green Party representation from all countries in Europe. All of them are standing on the position that the defence agency project, the armaments projects and the big European army projects that certain parties and countries are leading are not the way forward. I am proud to stand in that tradition. I recognise the need to give our troops skills, but the constant use of the European Defence Agency as a mechanism to do that raises wider concerns that we cannot ignore.

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