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Brussels to consider plans for European army as Ireland set to kill EU constitution with referendum 'No' vote Daily
Mail The European parliament is set to consider plans for the EU to have its own army, it emerged today. Polish foreign affairs committee chairman Jacek Saryusz-Wolski called for every member states to contribute to a European peace-keeping force that would be controlled from Brussels. The news comes as EU constitution faces being scuppered within days after an opinion poll last night showed Irish voters were set to reject the controversial treaty in a referendum next week.
(Article continues below) The re-emergence of the idea of a European army will please the French who have made it clear that strengthening the EU’s military is one of their priorities during their six-month presidency. The French will also call for EU states to significantly increase their defence spending. They also want more helicopters and aircraft to be made available for missions. Foreign Secretary David Miliband raised the prospect of an EU army late last year when he said that the EU should be better prepared to fight conflict around the world. He called for the EU to be a ‘model power of regional cooperation’ which was not afraid to use military force. The proposals will be unveiled by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in two weeks time. The new proposals come as Europe's joint defence efforts were slammed today as "impoverished and amateurish" - with only one fifth of European armed forces battle-ready. European armies are not being modernised and many countries are so "miserly" on military costs that sharing the burden of running a European security and defence policy is impossible, according to Andrew Duff, a Liberal Democrat MEP and member of the European Council on Foreign relations. Mr Duff warned: "Member states are dreadfully complacent about the present state of the EU's common foreign and security policy. "It's all very well having a grand European security strategy, but it should be followed. In fact EU governments have ignored their own strategy." He went on: "The UK and France have failed to deliver what the St Malo agreement promised in terms of integration. "Other countries have insisted on a miserly and self-defeating policy that military costs should 'lie where they fall'. "What is the point of that when the aim is to share the burden?" Mr Duff said research conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations and due to be published soon showed that, for a variety of reasons, only one fifth of European armies were fully ready at any one time. In Germany, for political reasons, there is a strict limit on troop deployment abroad, while elsewhere other operational and financial curbs mean that 80% of forces are serving solely on home soil, limiting the scope of joint ventures.
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