madam president let me start today by remembering lance corporal adam drane twenty-three of the royal anglian regiment from bury st edmunds in my constituency who died in helmand province on seven december the one hundredth member of the british armed forces to be killed this year
our thoughts should be with adam's family and all those families european afghan and pakistani who have suffered such loss
in the face of such sacrifice we in this house have our own duty to ensure that we do all we can to promote peace and prosperity for afghanistan
if we are to take seriously the new lisbon changes and a proper common eu foreign policy there is no more urgent place to prove ourselves than in the sands of afghanistan first to ensure proper alignment of individual member states activities behind this new strategy and second to welcome high representative ashton's commitment today to have a formidable new double-hatted representative in place in afghanistan very early in the new year
this is both a litmus test of more efficient eu working under the treaty and a marker of our future resolve for afghanistan
finally allied to this member states must ensure that eupol recruits the four hundred officers promised this is absolutely necessary to ensure afghanistan's own law-enforcement services can do their job properly
