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European Union (Amendment) Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, obviously has different contacts in Washington from some of the rest of us. No less a person than the Minister has prayed in aid President Bush asking where the money is coming from in Europe to pay for all this. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Astor, on his introduction of this amendment, if that does not trouble him too much, but I recommend that he reads the Farnborough agreement, about which I have not had an answer this evening. Perhaps he will study in particular Article 46, which states: "““The parties—" I read them out earlier— "““recognise the need to co-operate in establishing a long term master-plan that would present a common view of their future operational needs. This would constitute a framework for harmonised equipment acquisition planning and would provide orientation for a harmonised defence related R&T policy””." There is an assumption that all this is running in parallel with the interests and needs of the United States of America but, as I mentioned, the Farnborough agreement refers to the United States of America only as ““third parties””. There is no doubt that in the European Union we are dealing, as my noble friend Lord Blackwell has indicated, with French antagonism to the United States of America, inspired, as I have mentioned before, by its deep psychotic need to bite the hand that fed it in two world wars. That is what we are dealing with, and it is supported by misplaced German guilt, but German guilt none the less. The United Kingdom needs to be extremely careful before it goes down this road of European military collaboration with the European Union at the expense of the special relationship that has served this planet very well over the past century or so.