European Union (Amendment) Bill

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. The conditions for taking part in structural co-operations are very onerous. Article 2 of the protocol says that to achieve the objectives laid down, participating member states shall undertake to"““bring their defence apparatus into line with each other as far as possible, particularly by harmonising the identification of their military needs, by pooling and, where appropriate, specialising their defence means and capabilities””" and to"““take concrete measures to enhance the availability, interoperability, flexibility and deployability of their forces, in particular by identifying common objectives regarding the commitment of forces””." If a member state in the permanent structured co-operation does not want to go along with some European policy that is being decided by the European Defence Agency on qualified majority voting, or has decided to exclude itself from a set of decisions that result in the European Union making it its policy to harmonise certain defence policies, it loses the veto, because unless it goes along with that policy, it is not complying with the terms of the permanent structured co-operation and can be excluded from it anyway.