Debates - Thursday 23rd June 2005

Tobias Pflüger (GUE/NGL), in writing. It is really no progress towards peace that the Klich-Report calls for a minimum annual community budget of €1 billion € for armament and so called security research. The Parliament's Resolution is even worse than the Commission proposals. It is preposterous to try and aim to close the gap on armament spending between the EU and the United States. This would mean require the EU to spend still much more each year on armament research.

The EU is becoming more and more militarised. The spending of an additional one billion Euros on armament research would be yet a further step in this direction. In rejecting the Constitutional Treaty, the people of France and the Netherlands also rejected the EU militarisation envisaged in that Treaty. It is a scandal that the protagonists of this militarized EU are simply going ahead with their plans regardless. Instead of pretending to create jobs with huge spending on armaments, the EU should spend more on civil research programs - and not follow in the footsteps of the United States.