BBC report on French plans for EU military

sink

Just read it myself. I'm all for it. But I don't think it will reach the ambitions of the French. Every country still has a veto on military matters and I don't see at least 5 or 6 states including Ireland going along with it.

Sense wrote: »

Other items on the French list of proposals involve calling upon all EU countries to increase spending on defence to meet a new target of perhaps 6% of Gross Domestic Product.

Where did he get 6% from. The US only has about 3% and thats higher than most of the states in Europe. 6% would be way above the limit of what is acceptable to any country.

He also wrote more about it on his blog.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2008/06/in_defence_of_europe.html#commentsanchor

johnnyq

sink wrote: »

Just read it myself. I'm all for it.

Ha this is just the start of it.

Article 28: commitment to "increase military capabilities" is already underway.

Vote NO to stop this becoming binding on Ireland.

Scofflaw

sink wrote: »

Just read it myself. I'm all for it. But I don't think it will reach the ambitions of the French. Every country still has a veto on military matters and I don't see at least 5 or 6 states including Ireland going along with it.



Where did he get 6% from. The US only has about 3% and thats higher than most of the states in Europe. 6% would be way above the limit of what is acceptable to any country.

He also wrote more about it on his blog.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2008/06/in_defence_of_europe.html#commentsanchor

6%? That's Israeli levels of spending. Has someone completely lost the plot?

No, I wouldn't be in favour of any such increase - or any commitment to increase. I'm OK with things like the EDA, because if anything, the EDA makes it possible to reduce military expenditure - but increase them? Double them? Why? To fight whom?

amazed,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

johnnyq wrote: »

Ha this is just the start of it.

Article 28: commitment to "increase military capabilities" is already underway.

Vote NO to stop this becoming binding on Ireland.

Oh, do be quiet for once. French 'plans' virtually never come to pass, because they're fundamentally silly. Nobody is going to accept a doubling of their military budget, Lisbon or no Lisbon. Lisbon doesn't commit us to doing what the French want, and voting No will not prevent them putting forward their silly plans either.

regards,
Scofflaw

sink

Sense wrote: »

Hi sink,

Why would you prefer the EU to get into this sort of thing instead of say boosting health service standards, or having cost saving common medical supply procurement plans across the EU?

We are already involved in EU battlegroups. The better equipment and command and control procedures the better they will preform and the more likely they will suceed at the task they have been given. We are also currently taking part in a worthwhile peacekeeping in Chad but the effort was under resourced and the troops were left without enough helicopters and other equipment necessary to complete their mission. Why would anyone whish to commit our troops to any situation without giving them the best equipment possible.

On a more strategic level, I believe the more that the militaries of Europes current standing armies are co-dependant and intertwined the less likely they are to go galavanting of and get themselves into a right mess like Iraq. If the UK could not support it's military on it's own it would not have gotten involved in that god awful mess. More voices with more say of some of the most powerful militaries in the world is a good thing in my book.

Edit: Also having a common medical procurment plan across Europe would also be a good thing. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

johnnyq

Scofflaw wrote: »

Oh, do be quiet for once. French 'plans' virtually never come to pass, because they're fundamentally silly. Nobody is going to accept a doubling of their military budget, Lisbon or no Lisbon. Lisbon doesn't commit us to doing what the French want, and voting No will not prevent them putting forward their silly plans either.

regards,
Scofflaw

If you are for this Scofflaw then grand, but many many people disagree.

voting NO lifts the military requirement from Ireland, which should be most welcomed when we need to be spending money on much more important things.

sink

I just did some basic calculations using info gathered from the cia world fact book.

If 6% of EU gdp was spent on the military that would be 865 billion dollars. In comparison the US spends 4.2% on their military and that equals 582 billion dollars. We would leapfrog the US in terms of military spending and would spend close the same amounts as the rest of the world combined. Current EU militaries spend about 310 billion.

The_Minister

johnnyq wrote: »

Ha this is just the start of it.

Article 28: commitment to "increase military capabilities" is already underway.

Vote NO to stop this becoming binding on Ireland.

johnnyq wrote: »

voting NO lifts the military requirement from Ireland, which should be most welcomed when we need to be spending money on much more important things.

Part of the goals of the Department of Defense are to improve our military capabilities, so we have already voluntarily, since the foundation of this country, satisfied this clause. Voting No won't change that, since this clause puts us under no specific target to reach. We aren't "bound" to spend any more than we would anyway.

Oh, and 6% my arse, no way would the EU ever try to outgun the USA.

Scofflaw

johnnyq wrote: »

Scofflaw wrote:

Oh, do be quiet for once. French 'plans' virtually never come to pass, because they're fundamentally silly. Nobody is going to accept a doubling of their military budget, Lisbon or no Lisbon. Lisbon doesn't commit us to doing what the French want, and voting No will not prevent them putting forward their silly plans either.

If you are for this Scofflaw then grand, but many many people disagree.

voting NO lifts the military requirement from Ireland, which should be most welcomed when we need to be spending money on much more important things.

Do you ever actually read other people's posts? I'm opposed to this, but it's irrelevant. It's simply not possible for EU states to approve such a level of spending.

As to "spending money on much more important things" - that's actually up the government, who have increased the Department of Defence budget several times over the last few years, without Lisbon.

The whole thing is irrelevant to Lisbon. Voting No will not cut the DoD budget and release money to be swallowed by the HSE. Voting Yes will not prevent us cutting the DoD budget either, because we didn't undertake a commitment to increase our budget.

regards,
Scofflaw

is_that_so

Can't beat a bit of "news mining" in the summer.

Considering we are in the silly season the referendum is really the only thing happening in Europe, this is no surprise at all. France still seems incapable of sorting out its own internal problems. White papers are two a penny and more often than amount to no more than a justification for someone's salary.

ixtlan

This is so frustrating, and I guess an indication of why the public is confused.

It also shows why the yes side is constantly firefighting instead of promoting the good aspects of the treaty.

Ideally, we could just say, no military effects on Ireland and try to move on to something else, but then the no side starts to go into more detail on other countries intentions, and they would accuse the yes side of a cover-up.

Yes, there is a military clause in Lisbon. That was a compromise inclusion. Some countries want it, in fact most countries obviously want it. It does not commit us to anything. "Progressively improve ... military capabilities" is as vague as you can get, and does NOT commit us to do anything, does not commit us to increase spending, and does not commit us to defending anyone.

As an analogy... if the treaty contained a neutrality clause like "the EU remains completely neutral with zero military spending", would you expect the UK/France to spin that as "oh my God we now have to disarm and leave NATO"? Indeed not, they would say rightly that their rights to their own military decisions are sacrosanct.

We can complain about the military clause and aspirations of other countries, but as long as they don't affect us we should not. Is the logic that we must enforce our neutral view on all EU countries?

So again, we are firefighting. Bigh sigh.

Ix.

Moriarty

Thread split from "sense" aka "Galliard"'s previous thread as he was previously banned for breaching the charter and never bothered to reply to the PM saying we'd let him back in if he agreed to post by the rules.

Scofflaw

ixtlan wrote: »

This is so frustrating, and I guess an indication of why the public is confused.

It also shows why the yes side is constantly firefighting instead of promoting the good aspects of the treaty.

Ideally, we could just say, no military effects on Ireland and try to move on to something else, but then the no side starts to go into more detail on other countries intentions, and they would accuse the yes side of a cover-up.

Yes, there is a military clause in Lisbon. That was a compromise inclusion. Some countries want it, in fact most countries obviously want it. It does not commit us to anything. "Progressively improve ... military capabilities" is as vague as you can get, and does NOT commit us to do anything, does not commit us to increase spending, and does not commit us to defending anyone.

As an analogy... if the treaty contained a neutrality clause like "the EU remains completely neutral with zero military spending", would you expect the UK/France to spin that as "oh my God we now have to disarm and leave NATO"? Indeed not, they would say rightly that their rights to their own military decisions are sacrosanct.

We can complain about the military clause and aspirations of other countries, but as long as they don't affect us we should not. Is the logic that we must enforce our neutral view on all EU countries?

So again, we are firefighting. Big sigh.

Ix.

Very true. A preemptive official campaign would have been nice. As it is, anyone who wants to put forward the Yes case has to counter a thousand variations on the same No claims - this one is a variant on "EU ARMY!!".

Still, that wouldn't matter so much if the bigger guns in the campaign had managed to (a) boil the Treaty down to something comprehensible, and (b) pick some positive messages out of that.

cordially,
Scofflaw

R0C0

ixtlan wrote: »

It does not commit us to anything. "Progressively improve ... military capabilities" is as vague as you can get, and does NOT commit us to do anything, does not commit us to increase spending, and does not commit us to defending anyone.

Somewhat off topic.. I find it interesting how the military clause in the Treaty is presented by the Yes side as completely non-commital yet the words "and in particular combating climate change” is somehow a completely legally binding sentence.

is_that_so

R0C0 wrote: »

Somewhat off topic.. I find it interesting how the military clause in the Treaty is presented by the Yes side as completely non-commital yet the words "and in particular combating climate change” is somehow a completely legally binding sentence.

Sigh. Why don't people do a bit of searching.

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/emission.htm

As has already been highlighted over and over there are no military elements to the treaty that will affect us in any way. Even in the uncontentious housekeeping part the treaty is tidying up a lot of other areas and making them current.

R0C0

is_that_so wrote: »

Sigh. Why don't people do a bit of searching.

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/emission.htm

How is EU ETS relevant to the added textbeing legally binding??

As has already been highlighted over and over there are no military elements to the treaty that will affect us in any way.

Thats ridiculous. You may not agree that the effects will be as drastic as some are suggesting, but there are references to improving military capabilites that apply to Ireland. I know the commitment to improvement is vague, as in it doesn't necessarily state money must be spent, but in the real world, the only way the Irish military could be improved is with increased spending.

The better equipment and command and control procedures the better they will preform and the more likely they will suceed at the task they have been given. We are also currently taking part in a worthwhile peacekeeping in Chad but the effort was under resourced and the troops were left without enough helicopters and other equipment necessary to complete their mission.

I'm not trying to be smart here, but why are Irish troops going into missions that they are under resourced for?? Should we not just deal with what we are capable of dealing with?

sink

R0C0 wrote: »

I'm not trying to be smart here, but why are Irish troops going into missions that they are under resourced for?? Should we not just deal with what we are capable of dealing with?

That's like saying I won't bother getting an education i'll just do the jobs i'm capable of doing now and make no effort to improve myself.

is_that_so

R0C0 wrote: »

How is EU ETS relevant to the added text being legally binding??

It is an EU directive which are not only obligations for EU members but also legally binding.

Thats ridiculous.

You're sure here

I know the commitment to improvement is vague, as in it doesn't necessarily state money must be spent, but in the real world, the only way the Irish military could be improved is with increased spending.

And now you're not

Scofflaw

R0C0 wrote: »

Somewhat off topic.. I find it interesting how the military clause in the Treaty is presented by the Yes side as completely non-commital yet the words "and in particular combating climate change” is somehow a completely legally binding sentence.

And vice-versa of course...however, the answer is that one is a minor clause, and the other has been set as an EU objective. All EU legislation must take the objectives of the EU into account, and not work counter to them - afaik, they can be legally challenged if they do. That means that including combating climate change as an EU objective makes it an over-riding principle.

The "..progressively improve.." clause, on the other hand, is a sub clause of an article - so, yes, it doesn't have anywhere near the legal weight.

R0C0 wrote: »

Thats ridiculous. You may not agree that the effects will be as drastic as some are suggesting, but there are references to improving military capabilites that apply to Ireland. I know the commitment to improvement is vague, as in it doesn't necessarily state money must be spent, but in the real world, the only way the Irish military could be improved is with increased spending.

Not really. While I agree the reference to improving military capabilities does apply to Ireland, it's not the case that it necessarily requires increased spending, since the main focus is (as ever with the EU) interoperability. That almost certainly means standardisation with other European forces, which in turn would mean joint procurement through the EDA. That is not something that requires additional spending - indeed, it's supposed to reduce it.

R0C0 wrote: »

I'm not trying to be smart here, but why are Irish troops going into missions that they are under resourced for?? Should we not just deal with what we are capable of dealing with?

What's the moral point of that? We should aim to be capable of dealing with what we feel needs to be dealt with.

cordially,
Scofflaw

kaiser sauze

The US spends far more on its overall defence and military budget than the figures given earlier in this thread suggest. Try a couple of trillion.

R0C0

Scofflaw wrote: »

What's the moral point of that?

The moral point of that, is that Irish soldiers lives are being put at risk if they are being put into situations for which they don't have the resources to cope.

Whether or not we should spend more to give soldiers better resources is one argument on its own.

What I was trying to say, was it can't be good putting them into situations now, which they're not ready for. I'm not making an argument for or against spending in future. Just now, they're not prepared for certain places, so they shouldn't go.

Scofflaw

R0C0 wrote: »

The moral point of that, is that Irish soldiers lives are being put at risk if they are being put into situations for which they don't have the resources to cope.

Whether or not we should spend more to give soldiers better resources is one argument on its own.

What I was trying to say, was it can't be good putting them into situations now, which they're not ready for. I'm not making an argument for or against spending in future. Just now, they're not prepared for certain places, so they shouldn't go.

Well, one can hardly argue with that...but it doesn't really have any bearing on the question under discussion, surely? After all, the question seems to be whether we should commit to progressive improvement, rather than committing to sending lightly armed paddies to patrol Baghdad this summer.

cordially,
Scofflaw

R0C0

Agreed, slightly off topic, but it was a genuine question. I find it hard to fathom that someone actually made the concious decision to send under resourced troops into a warzone, I just wanted to know what other peoples take on that was.

lostexpectation

willie o'dea was waffling last week about how the percentage of our gdp we spend on military stuff has gone down in the last ten years since we've signed on to eu treatries, but since our gdp has shot up he's spinning through his arse as usual

ixtlan

There appears to be a consensus on all sides that we like the UN, and that we are proud of the UN peacekeeping missions. The UN has never had a standing army and the EU battlegroups will be a godsend for it. A highly trained co-ordinated mobile force ready to deploy in a few days/weeks including large numbers of "neutral" troops where desired and with backup from more heavily armed non-neutrals.

If as the no side seems to want, we withdrew from the battlegroups we would most likely find ourselves with very few practical UN missions in the future. Now it could be that that is what people want, but I don't think so. It would be more honest for the no side to acknowledge that they would like to withdraw Ireland from peacekeeping missions entirely.

This is not alarmist. If you look at the Chad mission it is dependent on I think French helicopters and logistics. If we really don't want to work with the French military then Chad would not have been viable.

As for under-resourcing, that is not always just about money. It can also be about whether the Irish troops can communicate effectively with French troops in Chad. Do they have the same radios? Can they share ammunition? Do they understand how they both operate? Do they work well together?

The way I look at the (very limited) military aspect to Lisbon, is that it enhances our abilities to participate on UN missions.

Ix.

R0C0

ixtlan wrote: »

It would be more honest for the no side to acknowledge that they would like to withdraw Ireland from peacekeeping missions entirely.

Oh come on, the groupthink is getting a bit much now. What on Earth makes you think, that everybody who is opposed to the Treaty of Lisbon, is opposed to Ireland being involved in peacekeeping missions?

sink

R0C0 wrote: »

Oh come on, the groupthink is getting a bit much now. What on Earth makes you think, that everybody who is opposed to the Treaty of Lisbon, is opposed to Ireland being involved in peacekeeping missions?

Well the people who are voting no based on neutrality don't seem to mind peacekeeping unless we are in a combined force with the French, British or Americans. It's really just anti the 'evil' former colonial powers and the 'oppressive warmongering Empire of the United States'.

luckat

sink wrote: »

Well the people who are voting no based on neutrality don't seem to mind peacekeeping unless we are in a combined force with the French, British or Americans. It's really just anti the 'evil' former colonial powers and the 'oppressive warmongering Empire of the United States'.

No, not really. That's not what neutrality means.

And there is a difference between a peacekeeping mission and a war.

sink

luckat wrote: »

No, not really. That's not what neutrality means.

And there is a difference between a peacekeeping mission and a war.

I know what neutrality is and Ireland is not neutral. We are 'non-aligned' but neutralists self indulge in their 'higher moral values' and feel they know better than people from those countries with whom they don't consort.

ixtlan

R0C0 wrote: »

Oh come on, the groupthink is getting a bit much now. What on Earth makes you think, that everybody who is opposed to the Treaty of Lisbon, is opposed to Ireland being involved in peacekeeping missions?

I don't think that everyone is opposed to peacekeeping operations and I was being a little sarcastic. I'm trying to point out the inherent contradiction in demanding that Ireland not be involved in any EU military co-operation, while at the same time applauding our troops for going to Chad for example.

Surely you can see the point of Irish troops training with EU troops and perhaps having the same equipment so that we can work better on UN operations, bearing in mind that the UN wants the EU battlegroups to be available for UN missions?

Then doesn't it follow that our troops will be at greater risk without such co-operative training?

Let me repeat again. The way I look at the (very limited) military aspect to Lisbon, is that it enhances our abilities to participate on UN missions. If we are not part of the battlegroups the options for UN missions are going to be very very limited.

If we are proud of our peacekeeping then we should expect to improve our military capabilities for the sake of keeping our troops safe and alive and for the sake of better keeping the peace whereever we are operating.

Ix