Treaty of Lisbon (No. 5)

The hon. Gentleman will agree that the first step is to build up capabilities. The purpose of permanent structured co-operation is to incentivise capability development. When the capabilities are in place, the decision on how to deploy them can be made. I do not disagree that NATO should be the first resort for the sort of missions that he describes, but I disagree that we should not even try to develop a European capacity to complement the work of NATO.