Seanad debates
Thursday, 10 October 2002
Address by President of the European Parliament.
I want to deal with one other point about the rapid reaction force. Whether one votes "Yes" or "No" to the Nice treaty will not change that because we voted for a rapid reaction force in an earlier treaty. The rapid reaction force is not a European army or a standing army. It is a standby commitment by member states to commit on paper one brigade of 850 troops, in our case, potentially for one year in a field of operations. The standby commitment is at the absolute discretion, if it should become actionable, of the Government and the Houses of the Oireachtas. The European Commission, Council of Ministers, European Parliament or any other external body has zero control and authority to send one Irish troop on one mission for one day. There is nothing in the treaty which alters any one of those things in the manner I have just stated.
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