Editorial: the future army of Europe

Photo: Urmas Nemvalts

The idea of EU army by European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker on pages of German Die Welt was nothing new, really. From time to time, the topic has been debated. Even by Mr Juncker himself, the army was in general terms mentioned in opinion article published by Postimees, in May 2014: «The strongest of soft powers cannot for a longer period operate without defence capacities at least to a degree integrated. By Lisbon treaty, members states who so desire are awarded the option to unite their defence capacity into permanent cooperation structure.»

With his recent statement, the noteworthy aspect is its Ukraine-Russia conflict context. Said Mr Juncker: a united European army would send Russia a clear signal that we take defence of our common European values seriously. No wonder that, through the mouth of its deputy foreign minister, Moscow has already demanded explanations to the statement.

What would a European army mean to us? First and foremost, probably, that the EU members not in NATO could take closer part cooperating in defence of the continent. Austria, Ireland, Cyprus, Malta, Sweden and Finland are yet to join NATO. At the same time, we have NATO allies in Europe who belong not to EU such as Norway and Turkey, and it would definitely not be in EU members’ interests that collective defence with them weaken. And anyway: why limit ourselves with joint European forces while we have a functioning and wider Western defence alliance?

Commenting on the idea, pros and cons have emerged – the Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and defence minister Carl Haglund, for instance, think the idea is worthy of discussions. The opposition, however, remains rather cold. The development towards joint army has been supported by high-ranking German politicians. The sound from Britain is basically that this is the typical armchair idea from Brussels and defence of Europe must remain a task for NATO. Of course, in the domestic political situation of the UK at the moment, any suggestion on increased integration falls on fallow ground – to say nothing about such fundamental change.

The real problem – and one to be tackled long before the distant future united army – is the overly low defence spending in European nations. In a recent speech in Brussels, US ambassador at UN Samantha Power said this was worrisome at a time when the world is filled with all kinds of security threats.

Meanwhile, Estonia’s wisdom in banking on NATO is again evidenced by the US platoon arriving at Tapa this week – Abrams tanks and other technology to join the large-scale defence exercise «Siil» (Hedgehog) in the month of May.