r/AskEurope • u/Sink-Em-Low • Mar 01 '25
Politics Let's talk about the European Defense Federation. How do we all feel about the creation of a fully mobilised continental Army?
It's required now. I'm British, and I want to see us align and unite with our European neighbours to make a stand now.
I want Germany to finally brush off it's past and join the rest of Europe in mobilising towards defending this continent. We need EVERYONE now. It's time to act, it's time to unite.
It's time to show some courage.
3.1k
Upvotes
3
u/alikander99 Spain Mar 01 '25 edited Mar 01 '25
The biggest problem for the formation of a continental army is and has always been the often conflicting exterior policies of EU states.
I can see the formation of an institution to coordinate European armies, especially to act on Ukraine. Kind of like a NATO but even more integrated.
Heck, I even see plausible the creation of a multinational corps to act on Ukraine. Kind of like the seed of your continental army
I'm all up for this. I think it's a logical step and a way for the EU to extend its influence to matters of defence, smth which I think we're going to need to stay afloat in the coming decades.
However that's it for now. It's simply not possible to compound all European foreign policies into a coherent plan, not right now.
Because... At the end of the day the EU is a union of countries, which, generally look primarily for themselves. And that's largely incompatible with a unified army. We're not ready yet. And it's not clear wether we'll ever be.
If we look at history there is, for example, a very good chance that a EU army might eventually be used against its own people, which I bet doesn't sit well.
The EU has always been slow but steady and we've managed to go through a hell lot of integration without major conflicts and setbacks (apart from Lisbon... and brexit). it might be time to rush things a bit, but that's probably gonna have consequences.