Why Is The European Union Creating Its Own Military?

In September 2016 the European Union's foreign policy chief enacted a timetable for developing an official military force representing the EU. So what would an EU armed force look like? Although talks of establishing an EU military force have been ongoing since the creation of the bloc, they've been opposed by objections from the United Kingdom. But with Brexit having separated the UK from the EU's decision making process, the EU is cleared to move forward. But could Europe really have its own military? Well, on the one hand, Europe does already have a defense network in place. First and foremost is the continent's involvement in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which represents 22 of the 28 EU member countries. NATO is also backed by the US and Canada, meaning that many of the most powerful militaries in the world, excluding Russia and China, are among its ranks. And both NATO and the EU have mutual defense policies stretching across their member states.

In particular, Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union actually provides a framework for EU members to support each other militarily in defense of a single attacked country. This article was invoked after the attacks in Paris in 2015, which the French President described as an attack against Europe, not just France. Additionally, thanks to the “Berlin Plus agreement”, EU members are allowed to use NATO resources in both peacekeeping and wartime engagements, under special circumstances. But in spite of all these defenses, Europe still doesn't have a centralized military force. At present, the only organized standing forces representing the European Union as a whole are called EU Battlegroups. There are rotating armies, comprised of about 1,500 troops each, and sourced from a number of cooperative member states. These Battlegroups are intended to deploy quickly for what are called “Petersberg tasks”. These are military activities but of a non-offensive nature, such as humanitarian, disarming, peacekekeping.

 The Battlegroups are controlled by the Council of the European Union. But despite having been operational since 2007, the Battlegroups have not yet been called into action. Instead, each individual country manages their own military, with no official quotas imposed by the EU. With some countries considerably more militarily focused, potential EU armed forces would be expected to draw from the largest ones: France and Germany. And although the establishment of a military needs unanimous approval from EU members, members of NATO like Latvia and Poland, have spoken out against the idea. Instead, they hope to strengthen their relationship with NATO as a western global defense force. And there are still critics of creating such an army. Some say that instead of defending their own country's interests, those decisions would end up in the hands of Brussels bureaucrats. Others question the intentions behind rivaling a force like NATO, which has US backing, something an EU military may not. Nonetheless it does appear that without UK interference, the EU is establishing a roadmap to create a functional standing army or defense force. Whether it will see unanimous approval, or even actually be called into service will remain to be seen.