German young social democrats: Vote for disarmament!

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Rating: 3.8/5 with 8 votes

Published Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 14:36
by Editor (1422 views and 2 comments)

Here is an opinion from Jusos – the German social democratic youth organization:

Slowly but steadily the European Union has been finding its role in the world by shaping a common EU foreign policy. More and more tools have been developed and policies defined.
However, Brussels is running the risk of loosing sight of one of its main origin: control of arms! The central objective of the European Cool and Steel Community at the very beginning was to make war unlikely by controlling and restricting the resources needed for weapons. Arms control and disarmament were two dominant goals on the European level to further foster peace and stability.

Today, disarmament and arms control do not seem to play a major role on the European level any more. The European Security Strategy from 2003 does not even mention "disarmament" once. The European discussion on US plans of establishing missile defence systems on EU soil had only been half-hearted by most actors. And instead of being committed to stop weapons flow into conflict regions, the EU opened up an Armament Agency in order to coordinate and improve its own weapons production being already one of the biggest exporters in the world.

We hope that the 'EU in the world' chapter of the future PES manifesto will take the European responsibility on in fighting global disarmament as a prerequisite for stable peace in the world! The European socialist and social-democratic parties and of course PES itself should stand up for a European peace power by disarmament as one of its tools.

Tags: conflict, defence, disarmement

Comments

1. Disarmament - I agree by Asynjen Join PES activists on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 11:32

Hi Jusos, I'm a young social democrat from a neighbouring country, Denmark. I very much agree with you that we should put disarmament back on the political (social democratic!) agenda. More and more countries seem to get nuclear weapons in their posession - this is a major step back for human development! Social democrats should, in their common manifesto, promote peaceful globalization.

2. Weapons - a waste of resources by fairness Join PES activists on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 11:42

So many people live in poverty - and still we spend so much money on weapons and armament. It's scary. I strongly agree that the PES manifesto should mention disarmament.

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