European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Order 2009

I am dismayed. Is the position that the UK Government, having decided on a very broad reservation about the Armed Forces, are saying that within the European Community there should be a matching Community-wide provision that would apply to the 27 member states? I hope that that is not what the Minister is implying. He will probably not know that so far as sex discrimination is concerned, EU law prevents such a broad exclusion, which is why we do not have it in our domestic law. It does not apply to the disabled, unfortunately, but surely the United Kingdom should be setting a good example, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has indicated, by seeking a narrow exception across the European Union rather than by crafting a broad one and then getting a matching one for all the member states? Is the position that we are promoting a similar reservation to our own across the EU, or is it that, for some other completely separate reason, the EU wishes to have something as broad as this? Is the dog wagging its tail or the tail wagging the dog?