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Politics

18th Oct 2019

Chief Brexit negotiator calls for a “European army to take matters into our own hands”

Carl Kinsella

Not over Brexit, mind.

Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s lead negotiator on Brexit, has taken to Twitter this morning to call for the introduction of a European Army.

Verhofstadt, who was Prime Minister of Belgium between 1998 and 2008, has been an MEP since 2009.

Writing in response to a video from The Daily Show that highlights Donald Trump’s hypocrisy over Turkey’s attacks on Kurds in Northern Syria, Verhofstadt seems to be calling on the EU to replace America in its invasive middle-eastern foreign policy — a controversial call, to say the least.

Trump recently abandoned the US’ Kurdish allies in Northern Syria, where the peshmerga army had been essential in defeating ISIS. Since Turkey has been allowed to attack Kurds in Northern Syria, it is believed that many Kurds have died and that ISIS prisoners have also escaped from Kurdish prisons.

“Since Trump became President,” Verhofstadt wrote on Twitter, “the US is not a reliable ally anymore. High time for a European Army to take matters in our own hands.”

As a neutral country, any involvement Ireland would have in an “army” would be heavily scrutinised.

Article 29, section 4, subsection 9° of the Irish constitution reads: “The State shall not adopt a decision taken by the European Council to establish a common defence pursuant to Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union where that common defence would include the State.”

As of Thursday, a five-day ceasefire has been agreed between Turkey and the Kurds.

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