European army

SIR – If France and Germany can sign a bilateral treaty for a European army (report, January 23), I wonder why Ireland feels unable to sign a bilateral treaty with Britain. RP Gullett

Bledlow Ridge, Buckinghamshire

SIR – In your leading article (January 23), you referred to the EU having developed very much in the way decreed by France and Germany.

No surprise there – it was how Winston Churchill envisaged it should be in his 1946 Zurich speech: “We must build a kind of United States of Europe... There is already a natural grouping in the Western Hemisphere. We British have our own Commonwealth of Nations… And why should there not be a European group which could give a sense of enlarged patriotism and common citizenship to the distracted peoples of this mighty continent?… The first step in the re-creation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany. In this way only can France recover the moral and cultural leadership of Europe.”

The whole point was that Churchill regarded “Europe” as them over there, not us over here. The EU conveniently omits that distinction. Ken Stevens

Sonning Common, Oxfordshire

SIR – Given Germany’s reluctance to spend money on defence, how come the Ministry of Defence has just awarded a contract to German companies to build tanks for our Army? Ian Fraser

London SW1