EU states to pool militaries

 

The European Union’s military chief announced today that EU member states will pool their military resources to build a “credible defence.”

Claude-France Arnould, who heads the European Defence Agency (EDA), said that defence ministers had agreed at a meeting in Brussels to much closer intelligence, training, reconnaissance and arms-purchasing links.

The 27 EU member states spend a total of €200 billion (£170bn) a year on their militaries — only the United States spends more on war.

Collectively EU states have 1.6 million men and women under arms.

Ms Arnould said that the bombing campaign against Libya led by Britain and France had shown the Europeans’ reliance on US air power.

“The message was sent from Washington — ‘We won’t do the job for you’,” Ms Arnould told reporters.

“To use an English expression, we need more ‘bang for our buck’.”

Ms Arnould’s predecessor at the EDA, Nick Witney, recently claimed: “European defence, like economic and monetary union, has arrived at a place where Europe’s leaders must now decide whether they want to take it forward — or else watch it break up.”

Meanwhile EU officials are urging Afghan President Hamid Karzai to let them keep troops in the resource-rich country beyond the 2014 date set for Nato’s withdrawal, EU ambassador to Afghanistan Vygaudas Usackas revealed yesterday.

He said that, despite the “severe financial pressure” on the eurozone, EU states should keep troops in the country after 2014 for what he described as “a generational effort.”