While all eyes are watching the European Constitution summit in Lisbon, a very different treaty has quietly been signed in Holland, where a group of EU countries approved the creation of a European Gendarmerie Force. "What we have here is a fully fledged paramilitary police force," says Gerard Batten, UK Independence Party Euro MP and spokesman on Home Affairs.
The treaty describes the organisation as a "multinational police force with military status" and its use is for "both external and internal actions".
What is more, this force will outrank local police forces when it goes about its duties, which include security and public order missions, public surveillance, traffic regulations, border policing and general intelligence work and "performing criminal investigation work, including detecting offences, tracing offenders and transferring them to the appropriate judicial authorities".
Mr. Batten said: "To add insult to injury, the organisation will be exempt from taxation, both direct and indirect. More worrying still, however, is the fact that the treaty makes plain that the European gendarmerie is a supra-national force, in the way that its communications and archives will be treated as secret, and it will operate with diplomatic status.
"Once an operation has started in a 'host' country, that country will have no jurisdiction over the activities of the force."
Mr Batten concluded: "Although the UK did not sign up to this treaty today, the fact that Gordon Brown is talking about 'opt-ins' to EU justice and home affairs issues advises us to be very wary.
"Previous experience teaches us that we eventually get these things through the back door" |
