These people do not give up

We have news of certain developments from Gerard Batten UKIP’s London MEP. Mr Batten sits on the Defence and Security Committee in the European Parliament. Although one would think this was an important topic, the committee sits once every two or three months. But then, presumably, there is not a great deal they can do apart from jaw-jaw. War-war, if it happens, will do so quite separately.

At the last meeting of the European Parliament Defence and Security Committee, the discussion was about an EU Defence White Paper, presented by an “independent task force”, that is the European Union Institute for Security Studies, based in Paris. So independent is this body that its existence was brought forth by a Council Joint Action and it “has the status of an autonomous agency that comes under the EU’s second ‘pillar’ – the Common Foreign and Security Policy”.

The Institute is very proud of the fact that it defends no particular national interest:

“Its aim is to help create a common European security culture, to enrich the strategic debate, and systematically to promote the interests of the Union.”

Those of us who would like to see a genuine debate on the future security of Europe and the West would say that this “independent” and “scholarly” institute starts with a certain view and looks for academic and political arguments to promote it, all using money from the European Commission.

The Committee that produced the White Paper comprised all sorts of experts on European security, none of which were in doubt on what the future should hold. But, just to prove its independence, the body was chaired by Nicole Gnesotto, Director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies (ISS-EU), who also presented the White Paper to the Committee. Further discussion was led by the Rapporteur, Jean-Yves Haine, who happens to be one of the Senior Research Fellows of the Institute.

According to Mr Batten, who sits on the Committee and, unlike many MEPs, seems to take his job seriously enough to listen to what is being said and to take notes, Mme Gnesotto announced that EU member states no longer had any political or ideological opposition to the ideas expressed in the White Paper (though she did not specify who had actually seen or discussed the document), only operational ones. These, she admitted were serious enough, to make putting the ideas in it into practice, rather difficult.

M Haine outlined five scenarios for possible EU military action, all of which seem to go beyond the old ill-defined Petersberg tasks:

1. Large scale peace support operations, the weakness here was the current inadequate troop levels in the EU.

2. High intensity crisis management, this requires rapid political decision making and a rapid deployment capability.

3. Traditional regional wars, e.g. the Gulf. The issues here were about armaments, deployment, locations of HQs and working with other, e.g. the USA.

4. Pre-emptive strikes, e.g. for countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. These operations require Special Forces and there was a problem with numbers.

5. Homeland defence (civil protection rather than military operations.

Interestingly enough, all five are the very actions and proposals that, when voiced by the United States, evoke shrieks of horror. Furthermore, none of them seem to have any direct relation to straightforward defence and security.

Even more interestingly, nothing has been said of this White Paper in the British media or in the British Parliament. Is there a reason for that? As the late lamented Bernard Levin used to say: I only ask because I want to know.