What Would A EuroArmy Mean?
Posted: 19/12/2013 | Author: The Political Idealist | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: david cameron, defence, EU, EuroArmy, Europe, Nato, Politics, UK Politics |4 Comments »Over the next 48 hours, European premiers will be meeting to conclude a two week conference on the role the European Union will play in co-ordinating the armed forces across its 28 member states. The British Prime Minister has annoyed his counterparts by essentially demanding that the measures agreed are watered.down.
The British are insisting that the importance of NATO is stressed in the defence agreement; the European Commission will not posses any direct military capacity; and that any reference to “EU battle groups” or similar is removed. Unfortunately for David Cameron, NATO seems keen for European defence to become more self-sufficient, which does mean some sort of Continental alliance.
I see nothing wrong with the establishment of a European Defence Alliance (EDA) built on similar principles to NATO: there could be very close collaboration between EDA and NATO, even a structural link, to ensure that the blocs work in harmony and that one is not superseded by the other. In today’s world, European interests are sufficiently ‘in sync’ to warrant structured co-ordination between our armies. After all, if a hostile power invaded Spain, or Golden Dawn established a fascist dictatorship in Greece, their people would rightly expect their European partners to intervene.
If we consider an act of hostility to one EU member state to be an act of hostility to all EU states, then it’s time for a pan-European defence organisation.
But that doesn’t mean a EuroArmy.
David Cameron is right to seek to block the European Commission controlling any soldiers or weaponry. Armies must be commanded by elected leaders who can be held to account by the people. The European Commission, a group of European heads of state, is not a directly elected institution, and so is not fit to command an army. A EuroArmy, if it is ever to exist, would be run by an executive accountable to a beefed up European Parliament and a directly elected President of the European Union.
I’ve no objection to that in principle, but the moment that such a structure exists, Europe stops being a bloc of sovereign nation states and becomes a federal superstate with over twenty official languages, a population greater than that of the United States, and the world’s third largest economy.
The people of Europe are not about to vote for that.
