Germany Doesn’t Really Want an EU Army
A supranational fighting force is politically untenable, but fixing an inefficient procurement system would be highly desirable.
An EU army needs more than this.
Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg
For all the recent transatlantic debate about creating a joint European army, Germany — which has the second-biggest military in the European Union — has little interest in setting up any kind of supranational force under the EU’s command. This reluctance is key to understanding the ineffectiveness of all the bloc’s existing military projects.
In a recent op-ed for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen laid out her vision of “an army of the Europeans” — note the change of accent from “European army.” Von der Leyen sees it as “armed forces under national responsibility, closely interlinked, uniformly equipped, trained for joint operations and ready for action, such as the Franco-German Brigade and the German-Dutch Corps.” The key words here are “under national responsibility.” This means keeping in place the existing procedures for deploying troops — a decision that, in Europe, lies with each member state.