HL Deb 27 September 2000 vol 616 c147WA
Lord Roper

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether the statement in Box 12.1 of the Spending Review 2000, which limits the area of deployment of future forces available to the European Union to "in and around Europe", represents an explicit agreement with European Union partners or an assumption of the Government. [HL3504]

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean

There are no specific geographical limits on possible EU-led military operations. We are making a planning assumption, for the purposes of an initial analysis of requirements, that within the agreed range of EU-led operations, the most demanding will occur in and around Europe. Forces should also be able to respond to crises worldwide albeit at lesser scale.