Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

The most recent meeting of the European Council placed a heavy focus on the ramping-up of EU defence readiness. Of course, under the Commission Presidency of Ursula von der Leyen, the term "defence readiness" is simply code for the acceleration of a militarisation agenda, an agenda that pushes Europe into a new arms race, an agenda that will see the European Union spend an unprecedented €800 billion on arms. These are all signs of a European Union going in the wrong direction. Russia's criminal invasion of Ukraine, Israel's brutal genocide against the people of Gaza and its unprovoked attack on Iran, the potential for the expansion of conflict in the region and the destabilising impact on the entire Middle East all speak to a heightened sense of danger, violence and a lurch towards war in today's world. However, we cannot hope to turn the tide of militarisation by adding to it. We cannot prevent and resolve conflict by sending signals of European readiness to partake in them. When fear and warmongering become the driving force behind policy decisions, then militarisation becomes a dangerous, self-fulfilling prophecy, an unstoppable quicksand that drags the world in only one direction, down. It has never been more important for those of us who believe in a better vision of the future, for military-neutral states, to stand up and be counted; for those who believe in peace, diplomacy, dialogue and the primacy of international law to stand out ground and champion a world in which peace may be hard-won, but in which war is not inevitable. We will not get there if we are governed by a might-is-right philosophy that does not whisper, but screams in the ear of the powerful to arm up. Militarisation is a zero-sum game in which the only winners are the arms corporations that profit from conflict while so many face poverty and deprivation every day. The real story of descent into militarisation is told by the headstones of young, working-class men and women, sons and daughters of ordinary mams and dads, sent off to die in rich men's wars. History warns us of this time and again and those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. It is not lost on anybody that this intensification of the EU militarisation agenda comes at the exact time that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael move to demolish Ireland's cherished neutrality, the attempt to dismantle the triple lock being the first shameful attempt. That move would allow the Government to deploy Irish troops to EU-led and NATO-led military misadventures and imperialist conflicts without any UN mandate anywhere in the world.

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