Towards a common military force for the whole of the European Union?
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell speaks to the press after the meeting of the heads of diplomacy of the member states on September 2, 2021 in Slovenia.
AFP - JURE MAKOVEC
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
An informal meeting of European Defense Ministers, this Thursday, September 2, 2021 in Slovenia, was largely dominated by the Afghan conflict and the inability of Europeans to defend themselves on their own.
Member countries have started what they call a “strategic compass” for the future of the EU on the world stage.
They are now considering the creation of a military unit that can be mobilized in an emergency.
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With our correspondent in Brussels,
Pierre Benazet
One of the problems is well known: the EU's heavy military dependence on the United States.
Apart from France,
since the departure of the United Kingdom
, very few countries of the Union have an army endowed with satisfactory projection means for occasional external operations.
For the European Defense Ministers, the Afghan debacle must serve as an electric shock to finally set up a permanent military tool. They had imagined a body of 50,000 men after the wars in Yugoslavia, but nothing followed. Ten years later they had formed battle groups of 1,500 men, but these never served.
In Kabul, the Europeans have all had to carry out evacuations, but they make the bitter observation that they do not even have, at 27, the means to jointly secure an airport.
“
Afghanistan is the example that comes at the right time to mobilize the will of the member states to understand that there is no other way to face such a situation than to have the capacity to act by ourselves
”, observes Josep Borrell, head of European diplomacy.
Joe Biden is the third consecutive US president to warn us that the United States is withdrawing from world wars.
This is a warning to Europeans: they must wake up and take their own responsibilities.
The idea of a European force of 5,000 men called "first entry", and deployable in emergency, is now on the table with a deadline of November 16 to make a decision.
► Also listen: Is the Europe of armaments possible? (Debate of the day, February 2021)
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