Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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352. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he is aware of the European Commission's capacity building for security and development plans; if he is concerned that these plans will divert money that was previously earmarked for development and peace building to be spent on training and equipping military forces in fragile countries instead; his views on whether lobbyists for the defence industry may have had undue influence in this policy change. [14329/16]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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The interdependency between security and development is well recognised. Economic investment and growth cannot flourish where conflict and instability persist. Likewise, equitable economic opportunity, good governance and human rights compliant application of the rule of law, where the military are subordinate to an elected civil democratic power, are the best guarantors of a secure environment.

Assisting partner countries to promote good governance, equitable economic development and peace and stability are at the heart of the EU’s Comprehensive Approach.

The December 2013 European Council emphasised the importance of supporting partner countries and regional organisations, through providing training, advice, equipment and resources where appropriate, so that they can increasingly prevent or manage crises by themselves.

To maximise coherence between the Union’s and Member States’ actions in this area the European Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS) published a Joint Communication on Capacity Building in Support of Security and Development (CBSD) in April 2015. The policy approach for implementation of CBSD set out in the Communication was endorsed by the European Council in June 2015. Efforts are now focussing on putting the concept into effect on the basis of an implementation plan prepared jointly by the European Commission and the EEAS.

Ireland has been engaged in discussions at EU level on CBSD for several years Work is currently focussed on the legal and financial aspects of the initiative and on lessons learned from the implementation of pilot projects in the area. No decision has been made on how the initiative will be financed and the European Commission is still considering options in this area for both short and medium term funding.

To assist in the decision making process the EEAS undertook an online public consultation over the past two months. It is hoped that further proposals regarding financing will be presented to Council later this month. We will carefully consider proposals for financing CBSD when they are published.