Seanad debates
Thursday, 27 November 2003
Address by President of the European Parliament.
The arms industry was mentioned. As Senators know, there has been some discussion about a European armaments agency. I incline to the view – I am sorry I do not have time to develop a more substantial explanation – that this makes some sense. Let us return to the question of effective multilateralism. If we want to make a European capacity contribution, as Kofi Annan has asked us to do so that Europe as a region will be able to contribute in crisis situations willingly and immediately on UN call, we lack the capacity. We have the developing Rapid Reaction Force, which is not a European army but a group consisting of contributions from European armies. In Europe today the 15 states spend half of what the USA spends each year on defence and we obtain only one tenth of its capacity to act. This is bad value for money. If we want to bring to the effective multilateral table our European capacity to act, we need better value for money. An arms agency can help us in this regard. Other points were made about weapons control and so on. We do not have to walk away from those values. Let us build them in and be more effective but also more cautious.
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