Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Last week with almost zero public debate, Ireland was signed up to PESCO. Among the most ludicrous arguments, some of which we have heard here, in favour of doing so was that we needed to drag our neutrality through the mud in order to support the EU and its values. Since when did increasing national defence budgets, creating new military capabilities, fuelling the arms industry, and compromising respect for human rights become core values of the European Union?

PESCO, the €5.5 billion European defence fund and the action plan on military mobility are just three initiatives of the past six months to shore up and strengthen a European military union. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, for coming to the House to debate this issue and I commend Senator Higgins and others who proposed this debate during Order of Business last week. It is no secret that many federalists in the European Parliament idolise the notion of a common defence policy and a single European army. Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, refers to PESCO as the sleeping beauty of Lisbon and is on record, in 2015, reflecting on his own desires for a federal defence force. Today the European Parliament in Strasbourg voted in favour of two reports calling for greater European militarisation. Those are the annual reports on common foreign and security policy, CFSP, and common security and defence policy, CSDP. The European Parliament has endorsed increased EU military spending and further European defence integration. The wording in these two reports is clearly laying the groundwork for an EU defence union and the creation of a European army. These two reports were fully supported by the three MEPs from the Minister of State's party. They voted in favour of the creation of EU military units as part of PESCO, spending 2% of our GDP on defence and for the free moment of military equipment and troops within the EU.

When Sinn Féin campaigned on both Lisbon treaties, Lisbon I and II, and referenced more military spending and a harmonisation of defence policy, many commentators batted away our perspective as illegitimate and simply eurosceptic. We have heard that here today. Many of those who were significant proponents of this treaty were dishonest. As we know, the people were forced to vote again on the basis that they would have protection and that Ireland would be excluded from any EU common defence programme. Yet in 2017, we are now discussing exactly that.

The long-standing national policy of neutrality is not simply an idealistic notion of which we wish to aspire. Neutrality, as enshrined in our Constitution, is one that rejects a colonial war-thirst held by many of our European counterparts. Neutrality recognises our historical and current occupation by one of these counterparts and discards their colonialism as nothing more than just that. Ireland has felt the scourge of colonialism and we do not wish to be complicit in it.

The PESCO agreement mentions the aim of a potential deployment of an EU battle group as well as agreements on increasing cybersecurity, and relaxing restrictions on moving military equipment and personnel across EU borders. Many of our European counterparts engaged, not so long ago, in illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed civilians in their hundreds of thousands, leaving those regions destabilised and vulnerable. Many of them are currently involved in disastrous expeditions in Libya, Syria and Yemen. I am proud that this State is not involved in those invasions. I am not proud that our State harbours and shelters the US forces going on to commit war crimes in the Middle East and PESCO further commits us to enable the Western superpowers to continue that occupational imperialism.

PESCO also commits countries to regularly increase defence budgets in real terms” as well as devoting 20% of defence spending to procurement and 2% on research and technology. Sinn Féin believes in increasing the State investment in our Defence Forces, as Senator Daly has mentioned. However, not in the way of procurement of arms and research and technology when there are citizens affected by a homeless crisis, are on trolleys and so on.

Article 29.4.9 of Bunreacht na hÉireann states: “The State shall not adopt a decision taken by the European Council to establish a common defence". Has the Attorney General spoken with the Minister of State about that?