The jamboree of propaganda for the EU has started with the beginning of the Irish EU Presidency. The bit that concerns me is confirmed in the Minister’s speech: The [Irish] Presidency will advance the measures set out in the White Paper on the future of European defence, the associated defence readiness roadmap 2030, and vital new initiatives on joint defence procurement. The paper she is referring to is the paper ReArm Europe. That is what this is about. That is what Zelenskyy’s visit is about and what von der Leyen is about. It is about doubling arms expenditure in Europe from the current level of €400 billion to more than €800 billion – just a little under €1 trillion. To put that into perspective, how much has Russia, which is an aggressive imperialist power that has illegally and brutally attacked Ukraine, spent on military and weapons? €190 billion. Europe is already spending twice that but it wants to double that again. NATO in total spends 53% of all global arms expenditure, which is now above €3 trillion; in other words, €1.5 trillion – ten times what Russia spends. Spending lots on weapons does not stop war, does it? It does not stop the killing. What does it do? The European Union exports €800 million worth of armaments and weapons to the State of Israel while it is massacring and engaged in a genocide against the Palestinian people. It is profiting from genocide. It gives the state that is committing genocide favoured trade status. Yes, we are looking for a suspension, which we know we will never get. Ireland is a major trading partner. The European Union as a whole has €43 billion worth of trade with a state that is in the dock for genocide. Ireland is one of the biggest of those trading partners at €5 billion worth of trade and the Government guts the Bill to impose minimal sanctions with the Occupied Territories Bill. In the midst of the genocide, we discovered €20 million in one year goes in dual-use exports to the Israeli military. That is to the Israeli military while it is committing a massacre. At the same time, the Government is going to get rid of the triple lock, which removes some barriers to the Government deploying troops in a European military project which Ursula von der Leyen has spelled out when she was speaking about the Strait of Hormuz, which the Minister mentioned. She said we must open the Strait of Hormuz. Who closed them? Israel, who we are arming and the United States. Donald Trump closed them by attacking Lebanon and Iran yet this is what von der Leyen said in April: A threat to a merchant vessel in the Strait of Hormuz is a threat to a factory, for example, in Belgium. So today I propose that we move beyond reactive crisis management. She went on to say the EU must consider expanding the scope of missions. She said together we should “build a region where peace is not merely the absence of war”. To me, peace is the absence of war but that sounds like she thinks peace is war. Peace is European military action in the Strait of Hormuz – not defensive action but sending troops to the Strait of Hormuz to deal with the problems created by a war started by the United States and Israel, to which we are providing the weapons to conduct that war while they are slaughtering Palestinians. I appeal to people; we have to protest against this madness. Money that von der Leyen wants to put into weapons should be going into housing, health, education and dealing with the cost-of-living crisis faced by working people. That should be our priority.

Sentiment score: -0.01