European Union (EU)

The Western Quest for Supremacy in the Era of Persistent Conflict

by Jürgen Wagner

We are indeed living in an era of change.
The latest financial and economic crises not only underscored the
bankruptcy of the exploitative neoliberal system but also accelerated
the profound ongoing shift of power away from the Western countries.
Russia and especially China are questioning their continued supremacy
which had been taken for granted for centuries. As a result, we can
currently observe rapidly growing geopolitical tensions that could
well spiral out into some sort of a New Cold War. Furthermore, there
are more and more military interventions – euphemistically called
"Stability Operations" – which are a desperate Western
attempt to protect the crumbling neoliberal order (and therefore the
profits of their corporations).

US president Barack Obama is seeking to close ranks with allies in the EU, not least because of the USA's grave economic and military problems. The deal is that, in exchange for increased political power, EU states should increase military support for the USA in maintaining the Western world order.

Argument paper on the Vatanen report and beyond, 16 of February 2009

1. The minority opinion to Vatanen's report demands a strict separation of NATO and the EU, why?

Hearing in the European Parliament on conscientious objection in the European Union

Regarding todays public hearing in the Subcommittee Security and Defence (SEDE) of the European Parliament on conscientious objection, MEP Tobias Pflüger (DIE LINKE), member of the Committee for Foreign Relations(AFET) and coordinator of the Left Faction (GUE/NGL) in the Subcommittee Security and Defence (SEDE) declares:

In this presentation I will give an overview of the right to conscientious objection, its
legal practices and frameworks in the 27 European Union member states. Before I do so, I want to step back a bit and have a brief look at the existing international standards about the right to
conscientious objection, as these standards allow us to put the practices in the EU member states into a perspective.

Campaign Against Arms Trade Local Campaigns Guide

With tips and case studies on working with local media, setting up a group, online campaigning, challenging arms companies, effective lobbying and more, this is a useful tool for anyone who wants to make a real impact through local campaigning.

Download it from: http://www.caat.org.uk/getinvolved/local/LocalCampaignsGuide2008.pdf

Report on EU policies on weapons of space

In November 2008, WRI Council member and MEP
Tobias Pflüger published a new publication on "Professional soldiers
and the right to conscientious objection in the European Union",
based on research of War Resisters' International. The publication
provides an overview of the present state of the right to conscientious
objection in the European Union, including the candidate countries
Croatia, Turkey, and FYROM (Macedonia).

On 14-15 November, antimilitarist nonviolent actions took place in a number of countries around Europe, as part of the a European Day of Action against military infrastructure. The day of action was another step in the coordinated work of radical nonviolent antimilitarist groups in Europe.

Report to the Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament

European Bureau on Conscientious Objection

INTRODUCTION

In
Paragraph 16 of the Resolution on conscientious objection in the
member states of the Community of 19 January 1994 (the Bandres Molet and Bindi Resolution) the Committee on Civil Liberties of the
European Parliament was instructed "to draw up an annual report
on the application by the Member States of its resolutions on
conscientious objection and civilian s

An E-Mail by a senior Irish official has been leaked to the press recently. According to this Mail, the government originally preferred to hold the referendum about the Treaty of Lisbon in the autumn of 2008: "But the risk of unhelpful developments during the French presidency - particularly related to EU defence - were just too great", the official is quoted.[1] The French population already noticed that their president Nicolas Sarkozy is good for many bad surprises, not the least because of his dismantling of the welfare state, his approval ratings are on a historical low. Nevertheless, the French President now intends to act on the European level, too. The chances for this are good as France took over the EU-Council Presidency on the 1st of July for the next six months. Especially in the realm of the "European Security and Defence Policy" (ESDP) Sarkozy has ambitious plans.

The European Defense Agency adopted a scheme on Sept. 25 for EU nations to share and coordinate their investments in new arms testing and evaluation.The new code of conduct is designed to avoid duplication and encourage the sharing of these expensive facilities in Europe, the EDA said in a statement.

More at: www.defensenews.com

On 8 September 2006, the European Parliament voted in favour of the right to conscientious objection in Turkey. The issue of conscientious objection was raised in an amendment that had been proposed by EBCO and was introduced into the report by the Green Group. The relevant paragraph reads:

The European Parliament,