EUROPEAN ARMED FORCES

published by the  European-Society Coudenhove-Kalergi, GS Heinz Wimpissinger

written by Bernd Posselt, President of the Pan-European Union, Germany

65 years ago the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, one of the staunchest supporters of the Pan-European founder Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, demanded that a European army be formed. He made this request not as a private citizen, but quite officially as the responsible correspondent of the Parliamentary Assembly of the recently created Council of Europe – this also being a brain child of Coudenhove. Only one month later the US signaled their interest to the construction of such a European defence force. The French Prime Minister René Pleven shortly afterwards proposed the plan for a European Defence Community. Even the Pan-European Bavarian Franz Josef Strauss passionately defended the idea of ​​a European Defence Community with its own European army. The EU would transform itself in something like the United States of Europe. And thus, on equal footing with the United States, be one of the two pillars of NATO. Since then the proposal for a European Defence Community has regularly flickered up only to be immediately extinguished.

Last summer an interview with the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, holder of both the Coudenhove as well as the Strauss Awards, revived this issue with quite positive echoes. The theme has provoked greater resonance than at any time since the fifties - which is probably due to two factors: The particularly grave threats posed by Putin through to the ISIS terror, combined with the dramatic shrinking of the coffers and the technical capabilities of the nation states.

The resulting pressure has, however, in recent years lead to a number of pragmatic steps towards a Europeanisation of security and defense policies. Within the EU, which for decades was not allowed to deal with these issues due to the blockade imposed by some Member States, there is now a European Military Committee (EUMC), a European Union Military Staff (EUMS), a European Defence Agency (EDA) for the European armaments cooperation, a EU Satellite Centre (EUSC) and the European Union Institute for Security Studies (ISS). The European Defence Agency is positioned directly under the High Representatives of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy - which means it is linked to the very pinnacles of the EU, concretely by way of the Italian Federica Morgherini, the European Ministers for External Affairs, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament: in other words the classic European institutions.

A concrete vision must first of all clarify the relationship of the Nation State with the European level in the field of defense. Pure intergovernmentalism is much too cumbersome. The EU needs a supranational, composite task force to which every EU citizen can apply to directly. This task force must be financed by the EU budget, controlled democratically by the European Parliament and commanded by an EU Defence Commission in close cooperation with the Council of Member States. The Council and the Parliament must agree by a qualified majority to any military interventions.

A European army worthy of its name would best come into being when national forces are closely coordinated, and supranational forces are clearly integrated at the appropriate political level, being that of the EU institutions - even if individual Member States such as the UK should choose to exercise an opt-out clause.