Europe's chief executive appealed to EU
governments on Friday to forge a military
alliance to defend the bloc and enhance its
power abroad, warning that the United States was
no longer prepared to do it for them.
Two days after unveiling a
multi-billion euro plan to help fund European
defense research, Commission President
Jean-Claude Juncker said it was time to
integrate militaries and defense industries,
seizing on the strong backing from France's new
president and Britain's decision to leave the
bloc.
"I see the tide turning," Juncker
told a conference in Prague, citing growing
support in EU capitals for military cooperation,
notably from French President Emmanuel Macron.
"The call I make today is not only
in favor of a Europe of defense — it is a call
in defense of Europe," he said.
Although the European Union has more
than a dozen military missions abroad, the
world's biggest trading bloc has never been able
to match its economic might with broad defensive
power, preferring to rely on the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization.
Britain had long blocked EU defense
integration, fearing a European army that would
challenge national sovereignty. NATO broadly
supports EU defense integration, as 22 EU states
are members of the U.S.-led alliance.
Chiding the bloc for decades of
failed attempts to work together on defense
since the 1950s, Juncker said that even before
the election of President Donald Trump, the
United States considered it was paying too much
for wealthy Europe's security.
With Trump, who has sharply
criticized European states for not spending
enough on defense and has refused to explicitly
support NATO, the reality was more stark, he
said.
"NATO can no longer be used as a
convenient alibi to argue against greater
European efforts," Juncker said. He said the
United States is "no longer interested in
guaranteeing Europe's security in our place."
The economically powerful EU has
long been able to boast of a "soft power" with
recent diplomatic successes including its role
in brokering the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
But the EU's inability to help bring
peace to Syria or significantly influence events
abroad, from Turkey to the Middle East, meant
that soft power was not enough, Juncker said.
"We have no other choice than to
defend our own interests in the Middle East, in
climate change, in our trade agreements."
EU leaders will discuss broad
European defense plans, first put forward by
France and Germany following Britain's EU
referendum a year ago, at a summit on June 22-23
in Brussels.
France, Germany and Italy want ways
to pay for common military missions abroad, to
be able to use EU battlegroups for the first
time and for industries to collaborate and
develop weapons and helicopters that can be used
by all EU armies.
EU states jealously protect their
defense contractors, meaning the bloc has
developed 178 different weapons systems,
compared to 30 in the United States.
"Absurdly, there are more helicopter
types then there are governments to buy them,"
Juncker said.
(Additional reporting by Jason Hovet
in Prague and Gabriela Baczynska and Robin
Emmott in Brussels)
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