Brussels has slapped the UK government with a staggering €100 billion bill in order to help them fund their EU army.
The European Union is demanding that member states, including the UK, spend over £86 billion, despite the fact that the UK has formerly chosen to leave the EU.
According to a report, “EU citizens expect more EU action in defence and security.” The report states that the EU intends to increase its national defence expenditure to two per cent of EU GDP – which equates to 100 billion euros by the end of the next decade.
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Express.co.uk reports:
The EU is determined to make Britain pay for The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) as negotiations get set to begin on Brexit, in which Brussels chiefs have warned Theresa May to expect a £50billion exit bill.
The defence report says that there is “need for deeper discussions on the future relation between the Union and the United Kingdom in CSDP matters, and in particular in the field of military capabilities, should the UK decide to trigger Article 50 TEU”.
Despite the huge spending demands, the EU admits at least one project in landlocked Mali in Africa is failing after three years due to lack of powers.
The report states: “European soldiers are currently prohibited from taking part in military operations as observers, which means that they cannot identify any problems that the units that have been trained may have, and that they are therefore unable to resolve any operational problems at a later stage.
“These units – both in Mali and in the Central African Republic – are being set up for combat operations, and whereas after three years without appropriate equipment and training, as is the case for EUTM Mali, they are nowhere near operational.
“Without the necessary armaments, training missions will only be carried out abroad if the government of the country concerned provides armaments and hardware to the units that they can then continue to use after their training is complete.”
Ukip defence spokesman Bill Etheridge hit out at the plans and said: “Since the declaration of St Malo was signed in 1998 to advance the creation of a Common Securirty and Defence policy an EU Army has been happening – regardless of what you call it.
“Former Commission President Romano Prodi called for an EU Army in 1999, saying it was ‘inevitable’. In the face of all these semantics, perhaps he put it best when he said: ‘When I was talking about a European Army, I was not joking.
“’If you do not want to call it a European Army, do not call it a European Army.
“’You can call it ‘Margaret’, you can call it ‘Mary-Anne’, you can find any name, but it is a joint effort for peace-keeping missions – the first time you have a joint, not bilateral, effort at European level.’
“The Lisbon Treaty we signed up to put this on the statue books.
“It is happening and pretending it isn’t or that we haven’t contributed financially or diplomatically won’t change that.
“The UK taxpayer must not pay one penny piece into funding EU battlegroups: the priority for us is to build up our own weakened military and reverse the chronic underfunding of previous governments.”
Mr Etheridge added the Government “must rule out any money from the UK being spent on an EU military, particularly when we have a recruitment and retention crisis in the UK Armed Forces and they are so short of cash they are even trying to cancel secure communications from loved ones to those serving abroad”.
The MEP said the UK “must have no operational role in any EU battlegroups and instead concentrate on meeting our NATO commitments”.
He added: ”Unlike the EU, which admits it has spent three years in Mali achieving nothing, NATO has bite.”
Mr Etheridge called on the Secretary of State for Defence to rule out any funding post Brexit and said there must be no “back door routes keeping us tied into any EU military projects”.
He added: “The British people voted against an EU military, despite being spun lies that it was not happening – they knew it was and they are vehemently opposed to it.”
The EU report further adds it is planning to remove an almost obsolete operation from Britain which was rolled out in 2008.
The project called Operation Atalanta is an initiative that was set up to tackle Somali pirates.
After Brexit the EU wants it removed from Britain stating: “New command arrangements need to be found with regard to the Northwood Operational Headquarters for Operation Atalanta.”
But the operation’s website reveals there are no current active situations, there have been no pirate disruptions for three years and that there are no hostages.
And the “countering piracy” initiative uses space in London to coordinate its strategy taking attention away from British naval matters.
Mr Etheridge said: ”MEPs probably think they are playing hardball taking the Operational HQ for Atalanta out of Northwood but it’s a win for us and a lose for them.
“They have used our top class secure facilities probably without paying us any money for them and now we won’t have that burden.
“But the EU Navy’s own figures on Somali pirates tell the story: no vessels held by pirates, no hostages held and no operations against Somali pirates in 2017 so far.
“Far from a serious fighting force, this is more of a red herring: quite frankly you see more pirates captured in an episode of Poldark.”
Sean Adl-Tabatabai
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