THE EU AND MILITARISATION

One of the more disturbing aspects of the Lisbon Treaty is the way it creates new openings for involvement in military adventures. The Treaty would increase the militarisation of the EU, as all states would have to increase their military spending. The Treaty commits the EU to working with US dominated NATO and therefore closely ties Europe to US foreign policy.
What remains of Irish neutrality would be even further undermined.
Since the Irish population last voted on the Nice Treaty, the EU has been developing a new military strategy based on ‘battle groups’. Few people, apart, possibly, from the Irish Defence Secretary Willie O’Dea, were under any illusion about what the battle groups were for.
Each battle group is capable of operating at least 6,000 kilometres from the borders of the EU – an area that includes much of Africa and the Middle East. There is to be one lead nation, which takes operational command, and the battle groups are to be capable of engaging in pre-emptive strikes.
There has been little real debate among the people of Europe about these ‘battle groups’ and now the Lisbon Treaty is seeking to give constitutional support to these developments.
The Irish government claims that Irish neutrality is still safe in their hands. But this government has already turned Ireland into one of the major US hubs for the conduct of its war on Iraq.
Great play is also made of the need to deploy European troops in ‘rescue operations’ in places like Darfur where it is implied that a pan-African force would not be sufficiently professional to deal with the situation. Yet few talk of the need for ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Somalia where the US backed Ethiopian regime has massacred thousands. Talk of ‘humanitarian intervention’ is, unfortunately, often a ploy to bolster the legitimacy of the big powers in new efforts to create spheres of influence. 
The EU battle groups will be used to assert the ‘right’ of the big powers on the Western Europe to reclaim spheres of influence from Russia in central Europe and from China in many African countries.

An Alliance with NATO

The Lisbon treaty will also allow for an intensification of EU- NATO links by legitimising the background links that have been forged between military planners in the EU and NATO and grant NATO a near permanent role in EU defence for the future.
For example the EU is allowed to request the use of NATO assets and capabilities and agreed procedures for ways to pay for them.

Increased Arms Spending

The Lisbon Treaty commits governments to increase their spending on the military.
In 2004 the European Defence Agency (EDA) was formed.  It is the first EU initiated armaments agency and was a big victory for the arms manufacturers. Its express aim is to increase defence budgets across the EU; promote ‘interoperability’ between the different national armies so they are using similar weaponry; and help develop a vision of Europe’s long term military needs.
The Lisbon Treaty requires countries to engage in higher levels of military spending to fulfil the dreams of the military planners who wrote this EDA blueprint for imperialist adventures.
The Lisbon Treaty gives the EU the power ‘to fight terrorism, including supporting third countries in combating terrorism’. Who are these countries which the EU will support in combating terrorism and who will dictate which enemy is to be fought? It is by no means clear.
It could include the US if it faced another terrorist attack and wanted to lash out at Iran or Syria, which it deemed responsible for ‘supporting terrorism’. Or it could be a host of pro-Western governments in Africa, which the EU Commission itself decided were in need of support against ‘terrorist’ insurgents. The clause is entirely open ended. 
A further ‘solidarity clause’ goes even further and obliges different governments to come to each others assistance in the event of a terrorist attack.

Most people in Europe still believe that they have a right to decent public services that protect them from the full ravages of capitalism. The EU, however, has been used to undermine these services and the present Lisbon Treaty carries that further.
There is no provision in the treaty that gives a legal basis to public services. The EU has developed its own special jargon for public services, which are known as either ‘services of general interest’ or ‘services of general economic interest’. Both terms cover services such as water, electricity supply, waste disposal, health care, social housing provision or education.
The distinction between the two categories is crucial but is hard to pin down. The only examples that the EU Commission has given of ‘non-economic services’ are the army, the police and air traffic control. If services are defined as ‘services of general economic interest’, they are subject to competition rules and so their funding cannot ‘distort’ the market.
 


French and Dutch voters rejected the EU constitution
with almost the same content in 2005