News for today's 2018

<br /> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Jj1TE3Dd4Qx_s565UkrbSrboMKGuMpLMb1OwNYaF13oi-7pZ7AO-EjF_hJrm4mggEC3IO7Usgzlcf5e3iOIsY8Xpqu8wkqR8GtaQP7gqxh7kjLPRmEOMBQt3NEJTT-L0GAFnf2BzpsVl/s1600/250px-Coat_of_arms_of_the_European_Union_Military_Staff.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Jj1TE3Dd4Qx_s565UkrbSrboMKGuMpLMb1OwNYaF13oi-7pZ7AO-EjF_hJrm4mggEC3IO7Usgzlcf5e3iOIsY8Xpqu8wkqR8GtaQP7gqxh7kjLPRmEOMBQt3NEJTT-L0GAFnf2BzpsVl/s1600/250px-Coat_of_arms_of_the_European_Union_Military_Staff.svg.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Coat of arms of the EU military staff</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">EU MILITARY PRIORITIES</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Five leading EU countries, but not the UK, have said the UNION needs a new military “structure” to manage overseas operations.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The foreign and defence ministers of FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY, POLAND and SPAIN issued the call <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6896989063397229776" name="rdb-footnote-link-1"></a>in a joint communique after a meeting in Paris on Thursday (15 November).</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The paper says: “We are convinced that the EU must set up, within a framework yet to-be-defined, true civilian-military structures to plan and conduct missions and operations.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It adds: “We should show preparedness to hold available, train, deploy and sustain in theatre the necessary civilian and military means.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It lists a number of EU military priorities for the coming years: helping SOMALIA to fight Islamists and pirates; “a possible training mission to support the Malian armed forces” in reconquering north MALI; “assistance to support the new LIBYAN authorities” against Islamist militias; “normalisation” of the Western Balkans; “conflict resolution” in GEORGIA; and police training in AFGHANISTAN.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh0HTCMW31Qym7uMGcytzIXh128n1sNIrNzjOYjvLXW1G_y8WUglfYM0CmmcISBodMPZ375CwLHY77sjM7aazX0usafWGY-RJKqzwQlDlRG8vlI9wsIJfmho3gdBOJi339J8Kad_zXZRDU/s1600/callmember.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh0HTCMW31Qym7uMGcytzIXh128n1sNIrNzjOYjvLXW1G_y8WUglfYM0CmmcISBodMPZ375CwLHY77sjM7aazX0usafWGY-RJKqzwQlDlRG8vlI9wsIJfmho3gdBOJi339J8Kad_zXZRDU/s320/callmember.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The communique also calls for more “pooling and sharing” of EU defence hardware in the context of crisis-related budget cuts.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It identifies “space, ballistic-missile defence, drones, air-to-air refuelling, airlift capacities, medical support to operations [and] software defined radio” as pooling areas.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The reference to new “civilian-military structures” comes after the UK last year blocked the creation of a new operational headquarters (OHQ) in Brussels for EU military missions.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">BRITISH “NOSTALGIA” FOR PAST GREATNESS AS A REASON WHY IT IS PULLING BACK FROM EU INTEGRATION</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">BRITAIN’S Telegraph newspaper earlier this week cited a “senior FRENCH source” as saying that EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton supports the idea of an OHQ, which will become a “ripe fruit” in the “long-term” as EU military operations multiply.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Ashton officials denied the report.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Meanwhile, the UK’s role in future EU defence co-operation was a big topic at the Paris meeting.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said the UK can join the group-of-five at any time: “The text which we have developed is open to all of our colleagues, especially GREAT BRITAIN.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">FRENCH defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the communique is designed to “create a movement” ahead of an EU summit on defence in 2013.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">For his part, POLISH foreign minister Radek Sikorski said: “If the EU wants to become a superpower, and POLAND supports this, then we must have the capability to exert influence in our neighbourhood … Sometimes we must use force to back our diplomacy.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He called for an “ambitious” EU budget for 2014 to 2020 to help with defence co-ordination.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Speaking in a separate interview in UK newspaper The Times also on Thursday, Sikorski blamed BRITISH “nostalgia” for past greatness as a reason why it is pulling back from EU integration and why it wants to cut the EU budget.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He touched on historic sensitivities by describing EU spending as a kind of “Marshall plan.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He said POLAND and other former-SOVIET-controlled EU countries missed out on the plan – a massive injection of US money to rebuild EUROPE after World War II – because UK and US leaders at a summit in Yalta in 1945 gave the SOVIET UNION control of eastern EUROPE.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“We fought Hitler alone, giving you [the UK] valuable time to prepare for fighting. But we did not enjoy freedom after World War II … Because of Yalta, we could not benefit [from the Marshall plan]. EUROPEAN cohesion funds are our Marshall plan for catching up with EUROPE,” he noted.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>

FIVE EU COUNTRIES CALL FOR NEW MILITARY “STRUCTURE”

Coat of arms of the EU military staff EU MILITARY PRIORITIES Five leading EU countries, but not the UK, have said the UNION needs a new mil...

FIVE EU COUNTRIES CALL FOR NEW MILITARY “STRUCTURE”

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