Alphen, Netherlands. 25 August.
Calls for a European Army are a bit like my school bus of old; it could normally
and tediously be relied upon to turn up regularly, but never went anywhere
interesting. Indeed, ever since I wrote my doctorate on the subject many years
ago Groundhog Day calls for the creation of a ‘common’ European force have
surfaced and re-surfaced every time pressure mounts for Europe to do more to
defend itself. The problem is that no ‘common’ as opposed to a ‘collective’
force can exist without a European government, and unless the French have suddenly
become fans of scrapping France in favour of ‘Europe’ that ain’t going to
happen anytime soon. The latest calls emerged this week and, as is now
traditional for Europe’s leaders, Brexit is to blame. I never cease to be
amazed at the power of we British to be responsible for all of the EU’s woes
these days, from the anaemic, for that read no economic growth in the Eurozone,
to failure to develop a common asylum policy, to Europe’s inability to defend
itself. Fool Britannia!
This week’s Franco-German-Italian
meeting demonstrated all too clearly just how far Europeans are from creating a
European government AND thus a European Army. Prime Minister Renzi wanted more ‘security’
i.e. help with the refugees flooding into Italy, but as a friend of Russia
seemed little interested in defence. President Hollande, like all French
presidents when in trouble, called for more Europe’ to ward off Eurosceptic
challenges to his political left and right, but not too much more ‘Europe’. Like
all French presidents of the Fifth Republic Hollande does not actually want more
Europe if it means less France. Chancellor Merkel benignly (and it is benign
folks) and deliberately confuses more ‘Europe’ with more ‘Germany’ as she
desperately seeks to use the EU to separate much-needed German leadership from
not-much-needed German history. The one thing that they could all agree upon is
that we British are appalling.
Indeed, it was interesting to
watch the body language of the three of them on the Italian aircraft-carrier Garibaldi, soon to be massively and mightily
eclipsed by the first of the new ‘ours are far bigger than yours’ British Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft-carriers.
This was the theatre of togetherness replete, complete and ‘deplete’ with symbolic
adherence to the federalist thinking of Rossi and Spinelli and the 1941 manifesto
for the creation of a federal European state in which none of them actually
believes. Only Jean-Claude Juncker believes in such nonsense, as his comment this
week about borders being the worst political invention ever attests. I assume
Juncker means borders within Europe?
However, it is European defence again
where all this ‘faux-Europe’ nonsense is really being played out. This week
Bohuslav Sobotka, prime minister of the essentially Eurosceptic Czech Republic,
called for the idea of a ‘common’ European Army to be put on the agenda of
October’s post-Brexit EU summit, because unlike Renzi he really is worried
about Russia. Put aside for the moment Sobotka’s now common confusion between a
‘common’ force and a ‘collective’ force. In a speech he also called for a ‘joint’
European force, which is different from a common and to some extent a
collective force a la NATO. His argument appears to be that such are the
security and defence challenges faced by Europeans be it from mass uncontrolled
immigration, Russia or a combination of the two only a European ‘force’ could
possibly help control unwanted movement within the EU, and even more unwanted
movement into the EU.
Add ‘President Trump’ to that
mix. Whether it be President Clinton or President Trump, but especially if it
is President Trump, the days of Europeans free-riding on the Americans for
their security and defence are soon to be over. Add to that equation the coming
loss of Europe’s strongest military power from the EU’s Common (there they go
again) Security and Defence Policy and a form of mild panic is setting in in some
quarters.
The problem is
that the EU can be either vaguely solvent or vaguely defended, but it cannot be
vaguely both. The EU’s monetary and budgetary stability rules prevent the realisation
of NATO’s Defence Investment Pledge. As I wrote in my big paper for the NATO Warsaw
Summit “NATO: The Enduring Alliance: 2016” “Given that 18 EU member-states are…far
beyond the 3% budget deficit to GDP ratio enshrined in EU law…if the next US
administration demands that NATO Allies move towards the 2%/20% goals far more
quickly than the ‘within a decade’ specified in the Wales Summit Declaration…NATO
and EU members will likely find themselves trapped in a kind of political
no-man’s land between German-demanded austerity, EU deficit to GDP laws, and
American-driven demands for all NATO members to spend 2% GDP on defence”.
In reality,
calls for a European Army are not driven by the strategic imperative to
increase Europe’s military capability in the face of threats. Rather, they are a desperate attempt
to find a way to increase defence investment without actually spending more
money and thus breaking (again) EU rules. The idea is by ‘eradicating’
duplications and the inherent inefficiency of having 28, soon-to-be 27,
separate national European military establishments money could be found at the
cost of sovereignty. All well and good
on paper, but does not work in the current reality is unlikely to work in future
reality.
European
defence is lost in-between Europe’s in-betweeners: between the EU and the
member-states; between ‘common’ and ‘collective’; between strategy and politics;
between the EU and NATO; between capability and capacity; between soft and hard power; between deficit, debt and defence; between the strictures
of the European currency and the needs of European defence; and between Europe’s
past, present, and politically-uncertain
future.
At one level
Merkel, Hollande and Renzi are right to recall Rossi and Spinelli; the EU
cannot stay where it is right now and continue to function – it must either integrate
more deeply or disintegrate ever so gently. And, it may be that once we pesky
Brits are no longer sitting at the table in Brussels telling the rest of the EU
a ‘common’ defence simply will not work without a European government, at least
in President Putin’s lifetime, then Europeans will decide in time to handover
the whole Kitten Caboodle of Europe’s defence to the EU. However, until then
the whole debate on a European Army will be trapped between strategic reality
and political pretence, and Europe will remain trapped between ISIS, Russia and
a possible President Trump, and will thus be far more insecure than needs be.
Of course, the
alternative for Europe’s national leaders is right between their eyes; spend
more bloody money now on defence! Now, where’s that bus.
Julian
Lindley-French
