Downing Street Says » David Miliband Speech

Put that the Guardian seemed to suggest this morning that there was the possibility of EU countries doing more collectively on defence and that there would be a review of this, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said it was best to speak to the Foreign Office for an interpretation of David Miliband’s speech. His understanding was that he had been talking about European Member States doing more in relation to, for example, burden sharing in Afghanistan.

Put that the "model power" discussed in David Miliband’s speech was the European Union as a whole rather than a group of individual states, the PMS said he thought that David Miliband had been talking, specifically in relation to defence, more about individual countries doing more in terms of burden sharing in Afghanistan, to give an example; he specifically refered to that in his speech.

Asked what was wrong with a European army intervening in somewhere like Darfur, the PMS said that we did have EU peacekeeping forces in Chad, for example, and in the Congo, but obviously defence matters were matters for Member States. Member States could cooperate, for example, in relation to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

Put that David Miliband was setting up Europe as an entity as opposed to NATO by saying Europe had shared values, the PMS said that he did not think that was what David Miliband was doing. Members of the European Union did have shared values, as did members of NATO, and those values were pretty much the same, as far as the PMS could tell.

Asked what the Prime Minister’s view was on this, the PMS said that the Prime Minister’s view was that there had been no change in terms of the Government’s position in relation to EU defence matters or in terms of the relationship between the European Union and NATO.

Asked what the Government’s position was in relation to EU defence matters, the PMS said that it was the same position which had been set out in endless white papers and official statements over the years.

Asked what the EU defence capability review was, the PMS said he did not recognise what the journalist was referring to – there had been no reference to such a thing in David Miliband’s speech.

Put that, in theory, there were similarities between the EU and NATO’s rapid reaction force, the PMS agreed and said that EU peacekeeping troops, where appropriate, had gone into action, for example, in Chad, the Congo and elsewhere. The position in relation to EU and NATO had not changed.

Put that David Miliband should be encouraging European Union states to bolster the NATO effort, the PMS said that that was what he thought David Miliband had been doing in his speech.

Asked if the speech was seen in advance by the Prime Minister, the PMS said that, as would be expected, if the Foreign Secretary was giving a major speech on foreign policy, of course he would discuss that with the Prime Minister.

1 Comment »

Blairite spiv fouls up. A headline likely to become more prevalent in the next year.
Comment by Ian — 18 Nov 2007 on 12:05 am | Link

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» Thursday, November 15, 2007

David Miliband Speech

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