Liadh for President
Liadh for President

Macron continues to cheerlead for EU Army – Ní Riada

Sinn Féin MEP Liadh Ní Riada has described a letter from French President Emmanuel Macron to all EU citizens as a thinly veiled attempt to further his EU Army ambitions.

The Ireland South MEP responded to Macron’s open letter, published in dozens of newspapers across Europe, in which he calls for an EU wide treaty on defence and increased defence spending.

“President Macron’s letter is filled with fine words and aspirations for the most part but when viewed upon closer detail it’s clear they are all there to mask his well documented ambitions for a federal Europe and an EU Army,” she said.

“He claims the EU needs reform, that we should be more than a market and work together to protect democracy, pursue greater standards of living and rescue the environment.

“And indeed we should, but those things are all at odds with the crux of his letter, the real driving force behind it, in which he calls for greater military spending and cooperation and the creation of a slew of EU wide agencies to back it up.

“There is no reason the nations of Europe cannot work together for environmental and social reform without the expansionism and militarisation that the letter insidiously implies.

“Indeed his bare faced call for ‘increased military spending’ is the exact antithesis of all the more palatable aspirations it contains. Already, important social and environmental programmes are being cut or cut back in Europe to divert billions towards military spending.

“I don’t see how we can funnel even further funds towards the military-industrial complex and maintain the same or even greater social programmes.

“The EU does need major reform but that reform must be based on creating a social and socially minded Europe, not on hiding ambitions of creating a new superpower behind hollow promises of motherhood and apple pie.”

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