A WEEK today Sir Keir Starmer will announce a resetting of the UK’s relationship with the EU. As explained in Part 1 of this series on Labour’s big defence sell-out, this is likely to mean our surrender to EU dominance under their ‘third state’ or ‘associated state’ rules.
So far only one other non-EU state has chosen to give away its sovereignty like this – Norway: a country which is, to all intents and purposes, without armed forces of its own anyway. While Switzerland’s participation in the PESCO (Permanent Structured Co-operation) project known as ‘Military Mobility’ has been approved by the EU Council of Ministers, they are not full participants (they have an administrative arrangement with the EU which is not legally binding because of the country’s commitment to neutrality). The Swiss do not, therefore, have to abide by onerous ‘third state’ rules which the EU and Labour wish to impose on the UK.
David Card has summarised what third party association means on his UK Defence Matters substack which he has given me permission to reprint here:
1. A third state must share the values on which the EU is founded.
2. It must not contravene the security and defence interests of the EU and its member states.
3. A state must have a political dialogue with the EU, which covers defence and security aspects when it participates in a PESCO project.
4. A state must provide substantial added value to a project, for example technical expertise or additional capabilities, including operational or financial support, thus contributing to the success of the project, and the overall advancement of PESCO.
5. Participation must contribute to strengthening Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and the EU’s level of ambition with respect to CSDP operations.
6. Participation must not lead to an EU dependency on a third state or allow that third state to impose restrictions on the use of developed capabilities. As an article in Jane’s Defence Weekly succinctly noted, ‘in other words the PESCO consortium will retain full control of all the project’s intellectual property’.
7. An agreement must be reached on sharing any capabilities or technology developed within a specific project, outside of the PESCO framework. This is to prevent such capabilities being used against the EU and its Member States in the future.
8. Participation must be consistent with the 20 binding defence commitments that PESCO Member States have signed up to, including defence spending targets and harmonisation of capability requirements.
9. A third state must have an agreement in place to exchange classified information with the EU and an Administrative Agreement with the European Defence Agency.
Some have claimed that the arrangements described in Part 1 of this series, the European Defence Co-operation (EDA), European Defence Fund (EDF) and Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), are merely international platforms for industrial co-operation. However, as Veterans for Britain (VfB) described in their evidence to the Lords ‘Reset Committee’, once inside these arrangements, everything is compulsory, as the rules of membership are highly legalistic and underpinned by quantities of EU legal text which lay down the requirements placed on states, the policies to be followed and the amounts they must pay in contributions.
VfB said: ‘Joining all these structures would tie our defence and defence industries to the EU’s rules and policies for foreign policy, defence policy, and defence industrial policy. The ruling jurisdiction is EU law and under this, the UK would be structurally, politically, diplomatically and financially tied into and subordinated to the defence architecture of the unaccountable EU Commission. It is also clear that attachment to any part of the European Defence Union subordinates members, and non-Member states who join it, by EU law, to the whole of the EU’s global strategy.’
The VfB evidence continues:
‘On 19 November 2024, the EU Commission announced that it would update the twenty Binding Commitments which form the basis of PESCO. These commitments, rather than its projects, are the foundation of PESCO. These range from a commitment to increase defence spending in real terms; to increasing collaborative projects, development and capabilities; co-operation in the virtual realm, supporting CARD – the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence; involvement in and commitment to the EDF and EDA; and funding, supporting and contributing to EU deployments. A re-working of the Binding Commitments will also lead automatically to a reworking of the Participation Rules for non-EU States, ie Norway, Switzerland and the UK. In February, the European Defence Agency began using even tougher language against ‘national preference’, ie preventing states from prioritising their domestic defence industries.’
The VfB evidence raises the further issue of the consequences arising from signing up to PESCO. Members and third states are required to state that they prioritise a European collaborative approach, which may or may not be aligned with the UK’s interests or democratic system: ‘Such a carte blanche handover of policy to the EU Commission could well leave the UK at a grave disadvantage in a major dispute over, say, Gibraltar or the Sovereign Base Areas of Cyprus.’
There is, next, a serious issue relating to any dispute with an EU state, or the EU Commission, over intellectual property or copyright, or patents brought by the third state, which are invalidated once the third state joins: ‘In effect, the UK would be prohibited from taking any action against that state or the EU Commission. On the other hand, PESCO gives the EU Commission the right to take measures against the UK if, in its judgement, the UK has not made a “positive commitment to the European defence industrial base” – a highly subjective measure. The consequences of all that, given the size of the UK’s defence industry, are huge.
‘Once any state is signed up to PESCO, the binding commitments act as a legal and political framework “towards a Common Defence”. This probably means full military unification and differs in that respect from the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Following this, PESCO is a route towards a “full spectrum force package” for the EU Commission, as a tool in its global strategy. PESCO also endorses a situation where the EU Military Staff (EUMS), the EU External Action Service (EEAS) and other CSDP structures can assess the UK’s compliance and participation.’
There is no doubt this ignores the will of the 17.4million British people expressed in the Brexit vote – the largest democratic vote in our history: ‘It directly erodes national sovereignty, imposing rules on investment and collaborative capability development.’
The expert signatories to the evidence* are clear that there is no sensible objection to collaboration, but that this is not the same as subordination, which they define as ‘deferring to interference from unaccountable bodies’.
Their concern is that PESCO, the EDA and the EDF are intended to create a European ‘Defence Union’, to use the Commission’s own words, rather than rely on co-operation or shared defence responsibilities between nations which are enduring characteristics of Nato; and that ‘the EU Defence Union is about integrating every aspect of defence, including budgeting, procurement, development, the roles of the armed forces, training and exercises, and finally deployments . . .’
All these, they explain, have, until now, been sovereign government responsibilities, for which the government remains accountable to those who vote and pay taxes.
To add insult to injury they fear that as a non-voting third state Britain would be disbarred from holding any command positions, or providing any headquarters, or acting as a framework nation during operations:
‘Given our relative standing, experience and military culture this is illogical at best. Some might say that it illuminates the desire to punish the UK for resuming its national sovereignty by quitting the EU.’
The final part of the series will report on the huge implications of signing the Pact for our defence industry that VfB have alerted us to and spelled out in their evidence submission.
For any reader concerned about Labour’s big defence sell-out please sign this petition to ‘Hold a UK referendum before joining any defence and security pact with the EU’ here.
*Veterans for Britain’s fully referenced evidence submission, which, at the start, details the questions they were required to respond to, can be found here. The signatories to this submission are:
Jonathon Riley CB DSO PhD MA Lieutenant-General (Retd), late GOC British and Coalition forces in southern Iraq, DCOM, NATO ISAF Afghanistan (Chairman)
Roger Lane-Nott CB FCMI FIAgrE, Rear-Admiral (Retd), late Flag Officer Submarines
Julian Thompson CB OBE Major-General (Retd) Late Commander 3 Commando Brigade, Falklands War, and Commandant-General, Royal Marines
Tim Cross CBE Major-General (Retd) Late DG, Defence Supply Chain and Advisor to the House of Commons Defence Committee
Gwythian Prins PhD Research Professor Emeritus LSE and late Senior Fellow in the Office of the Special Advisor on Central and Eastern European Affairs, Office of the Secretary-General of NATO
Richard Kemp CBE Colonel, former infantry commander
