(Newswire.net — March 10, 2015) — The idea of European Union creating its own full scale military and not relying on NATO is not a new one. For decades, there have been voices that now and then raise that subject in the EU Parliament. However, the idea never was strongly supported by EU members, until now.
European Commission representative Margaritis announced the discussion to be opened officially in June, as Germany supported the idea voiced by EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, Russia Today reported.
German government representative Christiane Wirtz confirmed that Chancellor Angela Merkel is open to the project of an EU Army, however, she feared that many EU countries which are NATO members couldn’t finance EU military structures because they are already obligated to their part in financing the NATO.
In addition, the question that hovers above this project is whether the necessity of EU creating army of its own is to protect from ‘growing threat from the Russia’ or to step away from the military decisions made in Washington.
Former Deputy Speaker of the Belgian Parliament Lode Vanoost believes the move is actually aimed against Washington. “Conservative forces don’t like the whole idea of America dominating Europe,” he told Russia Today.
Vanoost added that the idea was actually conceived after WWII ended, and at the beginning of the Cold War. “That failed in 1954, and the Western European Union was founded. So the idea itself is not new at all.”
Though the EU Force was established in 1972 and participated in marginal missions so far, the idea of full scale EU Army reappeared back at 1980’s and was halted because of the war that destroyed the Yugoslavia, country that was separated into six states with a lots of unresolved issues. Two states, Slovenia and last year Croatia becomes the newest EU members.
The next time EU Army project was brought to light was in 2013, but it was postponed until now.
The greatest opposition to that idea comes from the strongest US allay, the United Kingdom. “It isn’t right for the European Union to have capabilities, armies, air forces and the rest of it. We need to get that demarcation correct between cooperation which is right and EU capabilities, which is wrong,” said British Prime Minister David Cameron back in 2013.
The question, however, is not if the EU joint military forces are ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ but if it is financially plausible, because the Ukraine crisis has turned almost all EU members toward the NATO independent military structure for dealing with issues in Europe. There are, however, considerations amongst the supporters of the idea as well.
According to RT, Finland’s Foreign Affairs Minister Erkki Tuomioja told local media Yle that, no matter how much appealing the idea is, the European countries do not have the opportunity or funds to allocate a minimum of two percent of GDP on defense spending.
“It’s difficult to imagine especially in the current economic situation that along with NATO, some other duplicating structures will be created. We already have European Union Force, which were never properly used,” he said.
“It was a paper tiger aimed at giving mercenary armies some rest,” said Finland’s parliament defense commission chairman Jussi Niinisto, pointing out that 22 of 28 European countries are NATO members.
Other point of view comes from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. He said that EU’s image “has suffered dramatically and also in terms of foreign policy, we don’t seem to be taken entirely seriously.”
The idea to create a united EU Army is set for discussion at the EU summit in June 2015.