Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-07-09-Speech-3-482"
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"en.20080709.40.3-482"2
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"Mr President, this report opens by saying ‘the various political and security challenges which the European Union is increasingly facing make an autonomous European Space Policy a strategic necessity’.
If you accept this opening proposition at face value then of course the report’s recommendations follow as a logical consequence: a common European space policy, the implementation of the European security and defence policy, the use of the Galileo satellite system for military purposes, and, of course, a budget to pay for it all.
But if we do not accept the proposition, the logic falls apart. There are indeed political and security challenges facing the continent of Europe, but why should the European Union have an autonomous space and security and defence policy?
As far as the overwhelming majority of its citizens are concerned, the European Union is not, and should not be, a political state. And only states legitimately have security policies and military capabilities. As the report says, the Lisbon Treaty includes a legal basis for the European space policy and the possibility for permanent structured cooperation on security and defence.
But of course, legally, the Lisbon Treaty is dead. It was killed by the Irish ‘no’ vote in the recent referendum, so the implementation of a space and security and defence policy should also be dead.
Space and security and defence policy would of course require a common communication system, and the report underlines the necessity for Galileo to be used for an autonomous European security and defence policy. But until recently we were told that Galileo was for civilian purposes only. Finally it has to be admitted that its real use is for EU military purposes.
The report also wants it both ways. It wants an EU space programme linked to the security and defence policy but at the same time says that the space policy should not contribute to the militarisation and weaponisation of space. Of course space will be militarised and weaponised. That is inevitable. It will be done by the USA, probably by Russia and in due course certainly by China.
The security interests of the West should be represented in space not by an illegitimate European Union but with our ally the USA, in partnership with the only legitimate security organisation that has the democratic backing of the people of Europe, NATO."@en1
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