European Union (Amendment) Bill

Amendment No. 128 would insert a new clause requiring UK parliamentary approval prior to the deployment of the European Gendarmerie Force in the United Kingdom. I was asked to distinguish between civil contingencies and crisis management by way of examples. Civil contingencies might be flooding or some natural disaster. Crisis management could involve the collapse of a state, such as Kosovo some years ago. The difference could hardly be greater. The latest recruit to the noble Lord’s party, the honourable Mr Spink, asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs a Question on whether he, "““will make representations to those governments contributing to the European Gendarmerie Force that it should not be deployed on the territory of another member state of the European Union””." My honourable friend said: "““The European Gendarmerie Force … is not an EU proposal or agency. The primary purpose of the EGF is to assist in crisis management operations in post-conflict situations and it is therefore extremely unlikely to deploy in an EU country. Deployment of the force is a matter between the governments contributing to the EGF and the requesting state in need of assistance””.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/1/08; col. 93W.]" I was asked whether Article 352 would be used to establish a European Gendarmerie Force. Perhaps I may interrupt myself to say that Members of the Committee talked about an EU gendarmerie force, which it is not. It is the European Gendarmerie Force and has nothing to do with the European Union.