On Saturday the Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany, Guido Westerwelle, called for the setting up of a European army when he addressed the Munich Conference on Security Policy. Herr Westerwelle occupies a senior position in the government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

What he says must be taken seriously as indicating the thinking of the German ruling elites and, of course, Germany is the most powerful capitalist economy among the twenty seven Member States of the European Union.

It is worth quoting at some length what the German Foreign Minister had to say: ‘The Lisbon Treaty opened a new chapter. . . . . Lisbon is not the end but, rather, the beginning. For instance the Treaty outlines a common security and defence policy. The German Government wants to move along this path. The long term goal is the establishment of a European army under full parliamentary control. The European Union must live up to its political role as a global player.’

It certainly didn’t take long for the truth to emerge about what the Lisbon Treaty really means considering that it only came into force on December 1st. In the course of the Referendum campaigns on that Treaty, some of us on the Left stated clearly our view that it was the objective of the more powerful EU economic and military powers to launch the EU onto the world stage as a major military power to complement its economic clout as a unit of 500 million people. Naturally there were loud denials from government and from the so called civic society organisations set up to campaign for Lisbon.

Herr Westerwelle’s intervention is almost a word for word repetition of what his predecessor, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said last May. He favoured the setting up of a ‘European armed force’ and wanted to see this project speeded up. Herr Steinmeier is a member of the Social Democratic Party which means that the bulk of the political establishment in Germany now wants a new European army. Herr Steinmeir also hinted that the French Foreign Minister was in agreement with his views.

Further pressure for a new EU military force is coming from the Italian government. In November, Signor Franco Frattini, the Italian Foreign Minister said that it was a ‘necessary objective to have a European army.’ He explained, ‘every country duplicates its forces, each of us puts armoured cars, men, tanks, planes, into Afghanistan. If there were a European army, Italy could send planes, France could send tanks, Britain could send armoured cars, and in this way we would optimise the use of our resources. Perhaps we won’t get there immediately but that is the idea of a European army.’

Worryingly the two current, and one former, Foreign Ministers each referred to the provisions in the Lisbon Treaty allowing a group of Member States within the European Union to forge ahead with ‘enhanced cooperation’ between themselves in the area of defence, in reality providing for a mini military alliance within the EU. Signor Frattini pointed out how certain groups of Member States had already opted for agreement on adopting the Euro and the Schengen accord and that this could now be applied to ‘common European defence.’ Herr Westerwelle declared that ‘the permanent structured cooperation instrument envisaged in the Lisbon Treaty provides the option of moving ahead together with individual member states . . . . . The EU Common Security and Defence Policy project will act as a motor for greater European integration.’

Those who studied the Lisbon Treaty closely will know that once the go ahead is given to a group of Member States to set up ‘permanent structured cooperation’ their actions are carried out in the name of the European Union as a whole. This could involve a military operation carried on outside the borders of the EU. The control of such an operation, however, would rest with the group of Member States involved to the exclusion of non participating states.

Currently the European Commission is busy preparing to launch new, fully fledged EU embassies around the world. This again is provided for in the Lisbon Treaty but the full ramification is far from understood among the ordinary populations in the Member States. Lisbon is categorical that these embassies take precedence over national Member State embassies when there is a conflict.

It may be some time before a serious conflict arises in this area but it is inevitable. What happens when a group of EU states involved in ‘structured cooperation’ conduct a military mission outside of Europe which comes to be strongly opposed by a majority of Irish people, as happened with the invasion of Iraq for example? Those who browbeat the Irish people into voting ‘Yes’ for Lisbon will have some explaining to do as the real Lisbon agenda is borne out.

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