Maybe I have a rather outdated image of what a nun gets up to, but I have to confess to being amazed as I watched Channel 4’s ‘Dispatches’ last night, to see Sister Barbara Raferty of Scoil Chriost Ri in Portloise, County Carlow, overseeing a budding arms brokerage business managed by her sixth form girls. Needless to say the good sister was not pursuing a lucrative way of repairing the Church roof, but was leading an exercise to demonstrate the continued loopholes in EU control of the arms trade. The message of the programme was that three years after the EU leaders reached a common position on arms brokering, it is still shockingly easy to trade lethal weapons and instruments of torture from within the European Union. For those who are sceptical of the worth of the Union, this programme provided pause for thought.
Working daily on the European Union, one frequently finds the same question being asked – is the EU really the best way of dealing with problem x or z? On the important issue of arms control, the answer is probably yes and no. Small arms brokerage is an important issue for the simple reason that such weapons are used to kill 500,000 people each year. There are few people who would be able to argue against controlling the proliferation of weapons that bring misery, instability and death. Arms brokering itself is the process whereby merchants trade weapons either to bring them into the EU or to move them between third countries. The EU’s record of dealing with this has so far been mixed by promising.
The 2003 European Council Common Position on arms brokering placed the onus on member states to take legislative action against brokering. Yet, according to Channel 4, there are four states, including Ireland, that have yet to do so. This meant that Sister Barbara’s pupils, along with colleagues from Lord Williams Upper School in Thame, where able to set up deals to trade AK-47s, grenade launchers, MP5 sub-machine guns, stun batons and a TR-85 M1 tank! They made it look frighteningly easy.
The reason that they could do this, despite the EU’s attempts to regulate the arms trade, is that the existing Council Position does not set any deadlines or sanctions to be taken against member states that fail to fulfil their obligations. One solution to this would be to give the EU more direct legislative power to force member states to comply, as it already does in many other areas. Yet one could also argue that it is the existing closeness of relations that allows some countries to dodge some decisions. Because member states relations are so deeply intertwined, there is little reason for one country to stick its neck out on one issue and risk losing co-operation on other areas. Obviously this is always a fine balancing act – if countries were to become much more distant then the benefits of positive co-operation would be lost, but a relationship where open criticism and cajoling was easier could mean that reluctant countries are not able to sweep unpalatable and little discussed issues under the carpet.
Overall, we have to recognise that vital issues like these can only be dealt with internationally, but that does not mean that we necessarily have to accept existing frameworks for international co-operation in order to achieve worthy ends.
Comments (1)
The UK's membership of the EU compromises its security - the EU's interest in sharing technology and selling arms to countries like China means the USA is reluctant to let us have its own weapon systems.
The seeds are being sown for the destruction of Britain's traditional transatlantic alliance, and indeed its alliances with the Anglosphere generally.
Posted by Tim | April 5, 2006 12:37 PM
Posted on April 5, 2006 12:37