European Army

On the Way towards a European Army

June 2007

SPD Members of the German Bundestag have laid out a plan for the further development of the military dimension of European Foreign and Security Policy. It envisions a series of concrete steps for the deepening of military cooperation in Europe. In the long run, these steps could open up the way to the creation of a European army.

The paper has been written by members of the SPD parliamentarian party's working groups on Europe and defence questions in the Bundestag: Hans-Peter Bartels, Jörn Thießen, Ursula Mogg, Steffen Reiche, Andreas Weigel, Michael Roth, Rainer Arnold, Gerd Höfer, Petra Heß.

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Where we stand today

The idea is not as new as it might at first appear. In 1954, nine years after the end of World War II, an attempt was made to form a European defence union. It was probably too early.

So now, half a century later, when we embark on a process towards developing a joint European army, we are not starting from scratch. Especially in the fifteen years following the end of the division of Europe, in other words since 1990, the EU has made great progress in closer cooperation on security and defence policy. Step by step, we have steadily advanced, even if from time to time our achievements are obscured by talk of crises and widespread Euro-scepticism.

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The "European Security Strategy" (ESS), which was approved in December 2003 by the European Council in Brussels, is the first EU document to describe common challenges and name common interests.

Meanwhile the EU has successfully carried out its first military operations. In Macedonia the Concordia mission took place from March to December 2003 under EU leadership after taking over responsibility from NATO. This mission made an important contribution towards peacemaking in the country. The first autonomous EU operation was the Artemis mission from June to September 2003 which aimed at stabilising unrest in the Congolese province of Bunia. After the operation's successful completion responsibility was handed over to the United Nation's MONUC mission. In 1999 in Bosnia-Herzegovina the EU took charge of the Althea mission, replacing the NATO'S SFOR mandate. In autumn 2006 the EU's EUFOR RD CONGO mission successfully backed up the first free elections to be held in Congo for over 40 years. In addition to this there have been several civilian operations, such as the EU police mission Proxima (civilian back-up operation in Macedonia) or the EU police mission EUPOL Kinshasa designed to support the redevelopment of the police force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The agreed development of combined European Battle Groups for crisis intervention purposes marks an important step towards integrating national military forces into future European security structures. Germany is actively involved in putting the concept into practice. The system's practicability will be continually monitored. Initial experiences with the envisaged system of guaranteed provision of specific units for prescribed periods have to be carefully analysed in order to develop it, if and when necessary.

The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, signed in October 2004 and whose ratification is currently on ice, provides for the further development of ESDP. By creating the European Defence Agency the EU members have brought forward a key element of the constitutional treaty. The new agency's role is to improve European collaboration on equipment planning, provision, research and technology, and to create greater coherence.

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The next steps

A European army, embedded in a new European Union, cannot be a short-term objective. A series of measures are conceivable in order to get started and provide the integration process with new impulses, namely:

* the setting-up of a European Air Transport Command which replaces the appropriate national commands in all of their functions, i.e. including education and training, maintenance and logistics, as well as joint air transport squadrons (the coordination of planning and operations of existing air transport capacities within the EAC framework can be seen as an intermediary step).

* at the moment there is no independent council of ministers for military matters in the EU: a "genuine" council of defence ministers should be formed on the way to a joint European army.

* a European Parliament defence committee should be formed. At the moment questions surrounding defence policy are only dealt with by a subcommittee of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs. A defence committee which accompanies the ESDP and the process of increased integration of the European armed forces as an independent committee would signal the strengthening of parliamentary responsibility at the European level.

* a European Military Academy or University should be created. This could also be a step towards formulating common educational and training standards for future leading personnel in the European armed forces.

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Our proposed direction - and what has to be discussed beforehand

Many questions still have to be answered on the road to joint armed forces. There are still many structural differences within Europe, for instance in the formation of the military forces, parliamentary participation or principles of leadership of the armies.

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* it is necessary to determine the decision-making procedures for declarations of war and peace (jus belli et pacis). The powers and responsibilities of the Commission (executive), the Parliament (legislature) and the European Council must be clarified.

* the handing-over of sovereignty by the EU states and the transfer of powers to a democratically legitimated European level must be discussed. Armed forces are a powerful expression of state sovereignty. The EU is not a state. It is something entirely new, and at the present time it is a kind of confederation of states with its own status in international law. How will, and how must, the EU be constituted to enable it to have joint armed forces? The national conditions for the handing-over of sovereignty must also be regulated. For instance, in the case of Germany, are the regulations in the Basic Law (Article 24) sufficient to this purpose?

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* the role of the nuclear armed forces of France and Great Britain in an integrated European army should be discussed.

Our objective: European armed forces

Germany's Council Presidency offers a good opportunity to take the initiative towards creating joint European armed forces. This is an ambitious objective and its realisation still seems to lie in the distant future. There could well be parallel structures during a transition period, but the objective is an integrated European army.

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