European Council Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Main Page: Jacob Rees-Mogg (Conservative - North East Somerset)Department Debates - View all Jacob Rees-Mogg's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is very precise in his language—he is a model for a learned lexicographer. I wonder therefore how he might construe this phrase in the conclusions of the Council of Ministers on the CSDP that was endorsed by the European Council, which says that the EU is
“to engage in all domains—land, air, maritime, space and cyber.”
How does that equal his assurance that what will be done will be mainly intergovernmental?
Mr Lidington
I take my hon. Friend’s description of me as a compliment, though I recall that Dr Johnson described a lexicographer as “a harmless drudge”—if I remember the quote from his dictionary accurately.
The answer to my hon. Friend’s question is that we must again go back to the distinction between a policy that is directed by and owned by the EU collectively and its institutions, which we do not have, and a broad policy on security and defence that rests on free co-operation between willing national Governments working together so that their capabilities complement one another, and working in partnership particularly with NATO but with other partners around the world as well. There is nothing to fear from the latter version of the common security and defence policy, and that is the version embodied in the European Council conclusions.