Europe and the arms - XIX Trobada de Barcelona

In full election campaign for the 2009 European Elections, we want to approach an essential subject for the future of European construction: the challenges, the needs, for what security policy?

Debate will focus on which may be the values of the Europe under construction, will analyse the different political speeches that define it nowadays, and will discuss about which are its challenges of security. In front of the manifest defense of armaments and militarism by some states, and partly recalled in the European Constitution, the European peace movement insists that disarmament and the establishment of a culture of peace are the best way to reach human security.

Coinciding with this event, the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT) will hold his annual meeting in Barcelona. Taking advantage of this, ENAAT and the peace movement representative’s participants in the Barcelona Meeting will held a joint Seminar the 30th of May.

Thursday, 28th of May

19.00 h Presentation Alfons Banda, president of Fundació per la Pau and *Arcadi Oliveres*, president of Justícia i Pau

19.20 h Opening lecture: Europe, where do you go? Tendencies and challenges of European construction
- José Vidal Beneyto, philosopher, Professor of Sociology in the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and Director of the Colegio de Altos Estudios Europeos Miguel Servet

Friday, 29th of May
17.00 h European Union military security policies
- Jordi Marsal, adviser of the Spanish Ministry of Defense, and civil assistant of the CESEDEN Director

European Union Defense Programmes
- Ben Hayes, researcher of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam, and author of “Arming Big Brother.

19.00 h The big European military industrial projects “The British Aerospace case”
- Ann Feltham, from the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), London
“The EADS case, a project in crisis”
- Jean-Paul Hébert, from the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherches sur la Paix et d’Études Stratégiques”, Paris

Saturday, 30th of May

Joint Seminars: ENAAT and members of the peace movement, participants in the Barcelona Meeting (opened to the public):

10.00 h European Union common position on arms exportations

12.30 h Arms exportations and military industrial agreements with Israel