Sir, - Paul Gillespie (World View, September 30th) claims that it is premature to talk of the EU becoming militarised, on the grounds that current proposals are as likely to involve "co-operative security" as "collective defence". Elsewhere in the same article, he discusses the creation of a 60,000-strong EU Rapid Reaction Force, and he also describes how EU and NATO developments "are intimately linked and enmeshed in a complex web of relationships".
Given these developments, how can one possibly argue that the EU is not becoming militarised? The fact of that militarisation is unaltered by whether one calls it co-operative security or collective defence, though unfortunately it is often only collective defence that is seen as breaching Irish neutrality. In reality, would Irish troops helping "to provide security in - and against - [Europe's] geographical and underdeveloped peripheries" (Mr Gillespie's words) be seen as neutral by the inhabitants of the peripheries in question? The answer is no; which is why the changes now occurring in EU defence and security arrangements are so fundamental as to require ratification or rejection in a referendum.
Unfortunately, the waters in this area are also muddied by limited information. Breda O'Brien (Opinion, September 23rd) has pointed to the limits on public access to documents concerning the new EU Rapid Reaction Force and other aspects of EU military co-operation. This, as she pointed out, has reached such a pitch that NATO, for example, can veto the right of EU citizens to see documents on EU defence and security policy. So long as these restrictions are tolerated, and so long as commentators emphasise soothing but ultimately meaningless verbal distinctions between security and defence, the chances of having a proper debate on these matters are minimised. - Yours, etc.
Andy Storey, Chairperson, Action from Ireland (Afri), Lower Rathmines Road, Dublin 6.