Emma McClarkin MEP fights against an EU Army

East Midlands MEP Emma McClarkin has today attacked plans and aspirations for an EU Army as outlined in a Parliamentary report – plans which were dismissed during the EU referendum as pure “scaremongering”.

The European Parliament is currently compiling a report entitled “A European Defence Union”. This report is aimed at improving defence cooperation between Member States and finding ways to strengthen the single market for the defence and security industries in Europe.

However, this report has taken on much wider goal and currently calls for “the Union to assume greater responsibilities in the fields of both external and internal security and to pursue more ambitious goals such as a European Army”.

Miss McClarkin said:

“During the referendum, warnings of plans for an EU army were thrown out and called scaremongering, and yet today it sits in front of me in black and white. I will be doing all I can to ensure this doesn’t materialise.
Inside or outside of the EU, a European Army detracts from commitments to national and NATO defence spending. It duplicates and replicates efforts made elsewhere to invest in defence.”

She added:

“There is great value in improving the single market for Defence Industries, as their ability to trade and interact is currently cumbersome. Here in the East Midlands we have a variety of businesses, large and small, that would benefit from less red tape in the single market – with Rolls Royce being one of the most notable. Instead, however, this file has been hijacked for a Europhile agenda, forgetting about the market and trade, and is replaced by impractical lofty ideas of an Army.”