The United States has Free Fall Nuclear Bombs based in a number of European Countries. These bombs, although under the command of the US are based aboard European military planes and would be dropped by European pilots. Recently bombs have been withdrawn from Britain and Greece. Lobby to have the rest of these bombs removed from Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Turkey by contacting your MEP.
The European Parliament elections are taking place at the beginning of June
on various dates from June 4th (UK, Netherlands) to June 7th (most
countries). You can find an interactive map on the EP website that tells you
when your country's elections are taking place:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/countries/default.htm?language=EN
This link is to the English version. On the EP website you can change the
language to any European language at the top right of the page.
At the IPPNW European Regional Meeting in Helsinki we decided to ask IPPNW
members to write, as individuals, to the MEP Candidates of their country and
ask them what their position on the removal of the US nuclear bombs based in
Europe is. Each person should write to the candidates for their European
constituency. You can find out more about European constituencies here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_constituency
It is of greatest importance to write to the candidates that have a record
of not supporting disarmament resolutions. But in General the EPP-ED (conservatives) party are the main opponents of disarmament.
You can find the names of the present MEPs from your country here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public/geoSearch.do?language=EN
For the full list of EPP-ED candidates, including those that are not presently MEPs, go to this site: http://www.europes-driving-force.eu/epp-ed-and-epp/default.epp?language=en
and click on your country for a list of the names.
It is important that candidates for the European elections are aware that people think that Europe also has a responsibility for getting rid of nuclear weapons, and that this subject is of interest to voters.
You can also refer to this article on nuclear weapons from the website:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/welcome/headlines.htm?language=EN&ref=20090422STO54148&secondRef=0
Keep the questions short and to the point. Here is an example: "Since President Obama's historic speech in Prague, calling for a nuclear weapon world, do you think it it now time to remove the US nuclear weapons based in Europe?"
If your country does not belong to NATO, then you might want to phrase the
question differently. "Given that [name of country] is nuclear weapon free, do you think it is time to engage European countries in NATO in a discussion about getting rid of the remaining US nuclear weapons based in Europe?"
But it is important that the questions are formulated differently. In Germany, we got some replies from candidates refusing to answer a question that had been sent with the same formulation to other candidates.
Other possible arguments to include:
- easier to talk to the Russians about their tactical nuclear weapon arsenal
if we no longer have tactical nuclear weapons based in Europe (Russians
withdrew theirs after Cold War over)
- more convincing to negotiate with other countries that might be planning
to build nuclear weapons, if we don't have any.
- nuclear sharing contravenes Article I and II of the NPT which forbids the
transfer of nuclear weapons from nuclear weapons states to non-nuclear
weapons states
- these bombs (B-61) are a relic from the Cold War and are militarily
useless, only provide a political function, not convincing for deterrence.
Xanthe Hall
... back[Find your MEP]
