What was claimed
A photo shows an EU police force which is coming to the UK.
Our verdict
The photo is of Peruvian police officers. There is no current policy for an EU police force.
There is no EU police force being rolled out in the UK
30 May 2019
A Facebook post, showing a police force clad in full body armour, claims the images are of PESCO, an EU police force which is “rolling out in the UK”. It has been shared over 500 times.
The photos are in fact of Peruvian police. Both images seem to be from a Peruvian Independence Day parade in 2007.
PESCO stands for “Permanent Structured Cooperation”, which is an EU strategy for closer cooperation on security and defence among members.
There is an initial list of 17 projects that will take place as part of PESCO, and 17 more were added last year. None of these include plans for an EU police force.
Regardless, the UK is not signed up to PESCO, and can opt-out of EU policies relating to freedom, security and justice.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the photos are of Peruvian police and an EU police force isn’t being rolled out in the UK.