In the 21st century, the picture has darkened. The United States has retreated. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has reverted to aggression. The turmoil in the Muslim world has led to mass migrations westwards and to extremism and terrorism within the borders of the Union. By far the greatest power in the EU is Germany, but Germany, because of Hitler, is passionately committed to not acting like a great power, especially where the use of force is concerned.
The EU is simply not equipped to deal with these shocks. Some argue that it should be re-equipped to do so, but how, and by what authority? The EU is like a huge, sprawling, continent-wide version of Belgium, whose bombed capital it shares. It tries to reconcile internal differences by pretending they don’t exist. It lacks the will and capacity for self-defence.
The EU is a huge version of Belgium – and it can’t deal with the modern world
Europe lacks the will and capacity for self-defence against the kind of attacks we witnessed this week
Makeshift memorials have been created across Brussels.
By Charles Moore
25 Mar 2016
Comment
There was a lot of tut-tutting after the atrocities in Brussels this week when some Brexit supporters used the events to claim that the EU’s policy of free movement and open borders is bad for security. David Cameron rebuked a Ukip MEP who said as much. His statement was “not appropriate”, said the Prime Minister.
Perhaps Mr Cameron was right, in terms of decorum. There is a natural order on these occasions – first, condemn the terrorists; next, express one’s sympathy for the victims, their families and fellow-citizens; only then feel free to argue about causes and failings. If you get this order wrong, you sort of let the killers get away with it. Much of the coverage this week expended more rage on the Belgian authorities than on the Isil-backed murderers.
Nigel Farage ✔
@Nigel_Farage
Former chief of CIA: EU 'gets in the way' of countries ability to keep their citizens safe. Safer outside EU! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12204233/EU-gets-in-the-way-of-countries-ability-to-keep-their-citizens-safe-former-CIA-chief-
warns.html …
12:23 PM - 25 Mar 2016
477 467
But the question of what the EU does or does not do for the security of its citizens is important, and will affect the referendum vote on June 23. Before the Brussels attacks, Mr Cameron said so himself. In his view, security is a central reason to vote Remain. Is he right?
Well, the EU does have a Counter-Terrorism Coordinator. He is, as it happens, a Belgian, Gilles de Kerchove. His predecessor resigned in 2007, because he felt that his post, which was set up after the Madrid bombings of 2004, had no proper powers. It is no disrespect to Mr de Kerchove, or his nationality, to suggest that he may not have been able to move things on very much.
For five or six years now, the EU has wrangled over a “passenger names record directive”, which, if passed, would make air-passenger manifests available to the relevant security authorities of all member states. Theresa May had another go at a meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers two days after the bombing. But still nothing has actually, well, happened.
(By the way, isn’t it strange that we are threatened, if we leave the EU, with “ten years of negotiations” about the details, as if this would be a shockingly unfamiliar experience? As a result of being in the EU, we have been negotiating incessantly, often inconclusively, for 40 years.)
Slowness is not the only problem. A resistance to strong security within the Union is built into its constitution. The doctrine of free movement of peoples, for example, means that the British authorities are not allowed to subject EU citizens entering this country to the systematic checks they can use on other foreigners.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg rigorously upholds these citizenship rights. Last month, it published a preliminary opinion that the daughter-in-law of the terrorist Abu Hamza could not be deported from Britain. Although she is Moroccan, not an EU citizen, and has a criminal conviction, she is the sole carer for her child, who is an EU (British) citizen. So they must stay, and we must pay.
Citizenship rights, of course, are always important, and I am not saying that, from its own point of view, the court is wrong. But how much faith will citizens have in the legal order which it so virtuously upholds if the potential application of that order cannot protect them from the people who want them dead?
Unstarry-eyed pro-Europeans, such as Mr Cameron, might acknowledge real problems here, but assert that improving EU intelligence and security cooperation is vital.
They are right, but there is a fundamental problem. Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, has been widely quoted this week. In an article in Prospect magazine, he asserts that the cost of Brexit “from a national security perspective…would be low”. No one has fully focussed on why he is saying this.
Sir Richard speaks of the “Third Party Rule”, which is “essential to intelligence cooperation worldwide” and inadequately understood by politicians. It states that “the recipient of intelligence from one nation cannot pass it on to a third without the originator’s agreement”. If he does so, trust breaks down, and intelligence dries up. The EU has 28 member states, so the phrase “Third Party Rule” hardly does justice to the problem. A “28 Parties Rule” would be more like it. If you propose to tell your secrets to Romania, Greece, Cyprus, Belgium - indeed, you might as well just put them out on the internet.
This explains why, as General Michael Haydon, the former chief of the CIA, said yesterday, the EU “is not a natural contributor to national security”. Since it seeks to dilute the concept of nationhood, why would it want to be? By far the highest level of intelligence trust in the world is the “Five Eyes” alliance, between the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. They share an experience of cooperation in wars, a language, a Common Law tradition and, in four cases, the Crown. This week, New Zealand voted to keep the Union flag on its own national banner. Trust runs deep.
The EU is not remotely like that. It is still defined by its beginnings. It was formed as a project for the reconciliation of enemies. It was successful, for many years, in getting most Europeans to buy into the project. The project could even – partially at least – cope with the end of Communism, because many of those formerly ruled by the Soviet Union preferred the offer of “a common European home”.
But what the EEC (as it then was) was not designed to do was to confront external threat, extremism and violence. The danger of Soviet Communism was dealt with, militarily and politically, by the main NATO allies - above all, the United States. On the rare occasions when the EU did try to take on really nasty problems, it failed. Radovan Karadzic, sentenced in the International Criminal Court at The Hague this week, was able to commit his genocide in the early 1990s partly because the EU was too weak to stop him.
In the 21st century, the picture has darkened. The United States has retreated. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has reverted to aggression. The turmoil in the Muslim world has led to mass migrations westwards and to extremism and terrorism within the borders of the Union. By far the greatest power in the EU is Germany, but Germany, because of Hitler, is passionately committed to not acting like a great power, especially where the use of force is concerned.
The EU is simply not equipped to deal with these shocks. Some argue that it should be re-equipped to do so, but how, and by what authority? The EU is like a huge, sprawling, continent-wide version of Belgium, whose bombed capital it shares. It tries to reconcile internal differences by pretending they don’t exist. It lacks the will and capacity for self-defence.
This weak arrangement is obviously preferable to a single dictatorship ruling Europe. But it puts the EU at the mercy of President Erdogan of Turkey as he decides whom to send our way, of Putin as he toys with us in the Middle-East and Ukraine, of Assad in Syria as he wonders whom to kill or expel next, and of Isil as they try to create a pan-European insurrection against the infidel. How secure does that make you feel?
The EU is a huge version of Belgium – and it can’t deal with the modern world - Telegraph
The EU is simply not equipped to deal with these shocks. Some argue that it should be re-equipped to do so, but how, and by what authority? The EU is like a huge, sprawling, continent-wide version of Belgium, whose bombed capital it shares. It tries to reconcile internal differences by pretending they don’t exist. It lacks the will and capacity for self-defence.
The EU is a huge version of Belgium – and it can’t deal with the modern world
Europe lacks the will and capacity for self-defence against the kind of attacks we witnessed this week
Makeshift memorials have been created across Brussels.
By Charles Moore
25 Mar 2016
There was a lot of tut-tutting after the atrocities in Brussels this week when some Brexit supporters used the events to claim that the EU’s policy of free movement and open borders is bad for security. David Cameron rebuked a Ukip MEP who said as much. His statement was “not appropriate”, said the Prime Minister.
Perhaps Mr Cameron was right, in terms of decorum. There is a natural order on these occasions – first, condemn the terrorists; next, express one’s sympathy for the victims, their families and fellow-citizens; only then feel free to argue about causes and failings. If you get this order wrong, you sort of let the killers get away with it. Much of the coverage this week expended more rage on the Belgian authorities than on the Isil-backed murderers.
Nigel Farage ✔@Nigel_Farage
Former chief of CIA: EU 'gets in the way' of countries ability to keep their citizens safe. Safer outside EU! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12204233/EU-gets-in-the-way-of-countries-ability-to-keep-their-citizens-safe-former-CIA-chief-
warns.html …
12:23 PM - 25 Mar 2016
477 467
But the question of what the EU does or does not do for the security of its citizens is important, and will affect the referendum vote on June 23. Before the Brussels attacks, Mr Cameron said so himself. In his view, security is a central reason to vote Remain. Is he right?
Well, the EU does have a Counter-Terrorism Coordinator. He is, as it happens, a Belgian, Gilles de Kerchove. His predecessor resigned in 2007, because he felt that his post, which was set up after the Madrid bombings of 2004, had no proper powers. It is no disrespect to Mr de Kerchove, or his nationality, to suggest that he may not have been able to move things on very much.
For five or six years now, the EU has wrangled over a “passenger names record directive”, which, if passed, would make air-passenger manifests available to the relevant security authorities of all member states. Theresa May had another go at a meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers two days after the bombing. But still nothing has actually, well, happened.
(By the way, isn’t it strange that we are threatened, if we leave the EU, with “ten years of negotiations” about the details, as if this would be a shockingly unfamiliar experience? As a result of being in the EU, we have been negotiating incessantly, often inconclusively, for 40 years.)
Slowness is not the only problem. A resistance to strong security within the Union is built into its constitution. The doctrine of free movement of peoples, for example, means that the British authorities are not allowed to subject EU citizens entering this country to the systematic checks they can use on other foreigners.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg rigorously upholds these citizenship rights. Last month, it published a preliminary opinion that the daughter-in-law of the terrorist Abu Hamza could not be deported from Britain. Although she is Moroccan, not an EU citizen, and has a criminal conviction, she is the sole carer for her child, who is an EU (British) citizen. So they must stay, and we must pay.
Citizenship rights, of course, are always important, and I am not saying that, from its own point of view, the court is wrong. But how much faith will citizens have in the legal order which it so virtuously upholds if the potential application of that order cannot protect them from the people who want them dead?
Unstarry-eyed pro-Europeans, such as Mr Cameron, might acknowledge real problems here, but assert that improving EU intelligence and security cooperation is vital.
They are right, but there is a fundamental problem. Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, has been widely quoted this week. In an article in Prospect magazine, he asserts that the cost of Brexit “from a national security perspective…would be low”. No one has fully focussed on why he is saying this.
Sir Richard speaks of the “Third Party Rule”, which is “essential to intelligence cooperation worldwide” and inadequately understood by politicians. It states that “the recipient of intelligence from one nation cannot pass it on to a third without the originator’s agreement”. If he does so, trust breaks down, and intelligence dries up. The EU has 28 member states, so the phrase “Third Party Rule” hardly does justice to the problem. A “28 Parties Rule” would be more like it. If you propose to tell your secrets to Romania, Greece, Cyprus, Belgium - indeed, you might as well just put them out on the internet.
This explains why, as General Michael Haydon, the former chief of the CIA, said yesterday, the EU “is not a natural contributor to national security”. Since it seeks to dilute the concept of nationhood, why would it want to be? By far the highest level of intelligence trust in the world is the “Five Eyes” alliance, between the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. They share an experience of cooperation in wars, a language, a Common Law tradition and, in four cases, the Crown. This week, New Zealand voted to keep the Union flag on its own national banner. Trust runs deep.
The EU is not remotely like that. It is still defined by its beginnings. It was formed as a project for the reconciliation of enemies. It was successful, for many years, in getting most Europeans to buy into the project. The project could even – partially at least – cope with the end of Communism, because many of those formerly ruled by the Soviet Union preferred the offer of “a common European home”.
But what the EEC (as it then was) was not designed to do was to confront external threat, extremism and violence. The danger of Soviet Communism was dealt with, militarily and politically, by the main NATO allies - above all, the United States. On the rare occasions when the EU did try to take on really nasty problems, it failed. Radovan Karadzic, sentenced in the International Criminal Court at The Hague this week, was able to commit his genocide in the early 1990s partly because the EU was too weak to stop him.
In the 21st century, the picture has darkened. The United States has retreated. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has reverted to aggression. The turmoil in the Muslim world has led to mass migrations westwards and to extremism and terrorism within the borders of the Union. By far the greatest power in the EU is Germany, but Germany, because of Hitler, is passionately committed to not acting like a great power, especially where the use of force is concerned.
The EU is simply not equipped to deal with these shocks. Some argue that it should be re-equipped to do so, but how, and by what authority? The EU is like a huge, sprawling, continent-wide version of Belgium, whose bombed capital it shares. It tries to reconcile internal differences by pretending they don’t exist. It lacks the will and capacity for self-defence.
This weak arrangement is obviously preferable to a single dictatorship ruling Europe. But it puts the EU at the mercy of President Erdogan of Turkey as he decides whom to send our way, of Putin as he toys with us in the Middle-East and Ukraine, of Assad in Syria as he wonders whom to kill or expel next, and of Isil as they try to create a pan-European insurrection against the infidel. How secure does that make you feel?
The EU is a huge version of Belgium – and it can’t deal with the modern world - Telegraph
