Fresh plans from the European Commission to grant Brussels extensive new powers to centralise defence spending appear to be too much even for Europhile member states. EU diplomats warn off-the-record that Eurocrats are simply not up to the role of organising the bloc’s defence.
EU members would be “invited” to purchase 40% of their military arsenal from 2030 onward through a “collaborative” joint procurement plan, according to a new policy announced on Tuesday, with the initiative to be partly financed by frozen Russian assets.
A more militarised EU looks increasingly likely after 2024 as Brussels, and Europe more generally, scramble for a response to recent Russian advances in Ukraine. There are also fears that the bloc may be left militarily vulnerable by an isolationist Trump presidency.
Perhaps most worryingly, the initiative gives honorary status to Ukraine, allowing Kyiv to directly purchase weapons alongside EU member states with plans to further integrate the war-torn nation into an emerging EU rearmament programme.
Despite the big talk on defence, the European Commission was only last month described as hardly being an ideal body to organise the bloc’s common defence by German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall. The company’s CEO, Armin Papperger, said that slow decision-making and a lack of initiative make Brussels incapable of purchasing arms collectively for EU militaries.
“We have discussed a lot of things for more than two years. But nobody really took action,” Papperger said to FT.
Furthermore, Brussels’ favourite press organ Politico reports that many European leaders are already describing plans for an EU army as dead in the water. German Green MEP Hannah Neumann said that it “doesn’t make sense to call for a European army at a time where you can’t even produce enough ammunition to defend yourself or support your closest partners.” Insider reports also suggest that plans for EU “defence bonds” to finance expenditure have prompted opposition from Germany in particular.
Speaking to The European Conservative, Austrian MEP Harald Vilimsky, from the national-conservative FPÖ party, described the new plans as “problematic,” considering his country’s proud history of neutrality. “If the centralists have their way, we will have an EU army tomorrow, with an EU defence minister and EU headquarters, all under the umbrella of NATO,” he added.
Some form of an EU army has long been an explicit policy goal of French President Emmanuel Macron and other federalist elites. Recently, however, they have been given a shot in the arm by the crisis in Ukraine, with the EU already announcing joint procurement policies on ammunition to help make up a shortfall in arms reaching the Ukrainian front as European stockpiles begin to run dry.
The plans are the brainchild of the EU’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton and come as Macron takes a more confrontational approach to Moscow, expressing that the deployment of European troops to Ukraine is not out of the question—a suggestion that prompted many European nations to express their horror about such an escalation.
Both Germany and the Netherlands are understood to oppose the new common defence plans, while the EU’s hawkish stance on Ukraine has also attracted heavy criticism from multiple European capitals including Hungary and Slovakia.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made further EU militarisation a key policy goal of her post-2024 election plans, as many Eurocrats feel sidestepped by the prominent role NATO has played in Ukraine.
