European Commission head says EU needs its own army

PanARMENIAN.Net - The European Union needs its own army to help address the problem that it is not “taken entirely seriously” as an international force, the president of the European Commission has said, according to the Guardian.

Jean-Claude Juncker said such a move would help the EU to persuade Russia that it was serious about defending its values in the face of the threat posed by Moscow.

“You would not create a European army to use it immediately,” Juncker told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper in Germany in an interview published on Sunday, March 8. “But a common army among the Europeans would convey to Russia that we are serious about defending the values of the European Union.”

Juncker, who has been a longstanding advocate of an EU army, said getting member states to combine militarily would make spending more efficient and would encourage further European integration.

“Such an army would help us design a common foreign and security policy,” the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg said. “Europe’s image has suffered dramatically and also in terms of foreign policy, we don’t seem to be taken entirely seriously.”

Juncker also said he did not want a new force to challenge the role of NATO. In Germany some political figures expressed support for Juncker’s idea, but in Britain the government insisted that the idea was unacceptable.