Congo mission: a further gate for establishing the EU as an independent military power
Press release 004/2006 - Tobias Pflueger (MEP) - Strasbourg, 16.01.2006
On the plans to send German paratroopers as part of an EU Battle Group for a battle mission to Congo, Tobias Pflüger, EU deputy elected on the list of the PDS, coordinator of the Left Fraction (GUE/NGL) in the subcommittee security and defence and member of the foreign relations committee of the EU parliament, declares:
Once more it shows itself that the militarisation of the EU advances more quickly than it appears at first sight. While the full combat capability of the EU battle groups is foreseen only for the year 2007, a first combat mission of a German-French-led battle group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) can already be counted on for March 2006. In this way, a further gate for establishing the EU as an independent military power will be pushed open. These military missions mean combat intervention, and surpass all preceding ones.
As far as the police and military interventions of the EU in Congo (EUSEC and EUPOL-Kinshasa) up to now are concerned, I ever again asked, in the name of my fraction, for complete information in the subcommittee for security and defence and in the foreign committee of the European parliament, not last about the involvement of the EU police trainers in the deadly repression of a demonstration in Kinshasa. Every time, it was refused to me.
It is good that the topic, kept secret for a long time, of the EU battle troops has now shifted into the limelight. Similarly, there confirm themselves, by way of the immediately impending EU battle missions, also the analyses of the Information Point Militarization (IMI), which already in the year 2003 pointed to militarily- led missions for keeping up economic and political interests of the EU in this region. There it was correctly stated that back then, for the deployment of French and German troops in Congo, “decided in 2003 by the EU Ministerial Council, the humanitarian reasons advanced do not constitute the real motivation, but that the Congo mission constitutes the final rehearsal for European unilateral efforts.”
The German government is already at this time one of the main actors. Already in one of the position papers of the Foreign Office of December 2003 (“Foreign policy strategy for Central Africa”) it said that the Democratic Republic of Congo “would, in the future, due to its size, its richness in natural resources, and its central location win considerably in political and economic weight.” In this way, there sketches itself in Africa a similar exacerbation of the Western distributional conflicts over industrial resources as it is already characteristic for the Near and Middle East.
Strasbourg, January 16, 2006
Translated by Carla Krüger, January 16, 2006
On the plans to send German paratroopers as part of an EU Battle Group for a battle mission to Congo, Tobias Pflüger, EU deputy elected on the list of the PDS, coordinator of the Left Fraction (GUE/NGL) in the subcommittee security and defence and member of the foreign relations committee of the EU parliament, declares:
Once more it shows itself that the militarisation of the EU advances more quickly than it appears at first sight. While the full combat capability of the EU battle groups is foreseen only for the year 2007, a first combat mission of a German-French-led battle group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) can already be counted on for March 2006. In this way, a further gate for establishing the EU as an independent military power will be pushed open. These military missions mean combat intervention, and surpass all preceding ones.
As far as the police and military interventions of the EU in Congo (EUSEC and EUPOL-Kinshasa) up to now are concerned, I ever again asked, in the name of my fraction, for complete information in the subcommittee for security and defence and in the foreign committee of the European parliament, not last about the involvement of the EU police trainers in the deadly repression of a demonstration in Kinshasa. Every time, it was refused to me.
It is good that the topic, kept secret for a long time, of the EU battle troops has now shifted into the limelight. Similarly, there confirm themselves, by way of the immediately impending EU battle missions, also the analyses of the Information Point Militarization (IMI), which already in the year 2003 pointed to militarily- led missions for keeping up economic and political interests of the EU in this region. There it was correctly stated that back then, for the deployment of French and German troops in Congo, “decided in 2003 by the EU Ministerial Council, the humanitarian reasons advanced do not constitute the real motivation, but that the Congo mission constitutes the final rehearsal for European unilateral efforts.”
The German government is already at this time one of the main actors. Already in one of the position papers of the Foreign Office of December 2003 (“Foreign policy strategy for Central Africa”) it said that the Democratic Republic of Congo “would, in the future, due to its size, its richness in natural resources, and its central location win considerably in political and economic weight.” In this way, there sketches itself in Africa a similar exacerbation of the Western distributional conflicts over industrial resources as it is already characteristic for the Near and Middle East.
Strasbourg, January 16, 2006
Translated by Carla Krüger, January 16, 2006
Tobias Pflüger - 2006/01/17 09:22
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