Euro loons at it again.

[Treize]

U heavyweights call for radical foreign and defence policy overhaul
Five of six biggest EU countries back plans which include pan-European foreign ministry and majority voting to bypass UK veto

Five of the six biggest countries in the EU, excluding Britain, have called for a radical overhaul of European foreign and defence policies to create a powerful new pan-European foreign ministry, majority voting on common foreign policies to bypass a British veto, a possible European army, and a single market for EU defence industries.

The German-led push, supported by 11 of 27 EU countries, embraces recent calls in Berlin and Brussels for a directly elected European president, sweeping new powers for the European parliament, and further splitting of the EU by creating a new parliamentary sub-chamber for the 17 countries of the eurozone.

While the call for a European army was not supported by all 11, the document also calls for a new European police organisation to guard the union's external borders and for a single European visa.

Nine months of brainstorming over the future of Europe by the foreign ministers of the 11 countries, launched by Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, has resulted in a 12-page document crammed with policy recommendations. It will prove hugely contentious and, if implemented, will increase the pressure on Britain to quit the EU.

"To make the EU into a real actor on the global scene we believe that we should in the long term introduce more majority decisions in the common foreign and security policy sphere, or at least prevent one single member state from being able to obstruct initiatives," the document said.

"Aim for a European defence policy with joint efforts regarding the defence industry (eg the creation of a single market for armament projects); for some members of the group this could eventually involve a European army."

The backers include Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland, five of the six biggest EU countries omitting Britain. The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Portugal and Luxembourg also signed up.

The recommendations include more incendiary steps, including a proposal to re-open and change European treaties by majority voting because getting consensus in a union of 27 or 28 has become too slow, acrimonious and unwieldy.

Apart from stiff resistance from Britain, which would veto a European army and refuse to take part in foreign policies with which it disagreed, the proposals are likely to prompt a turf war in the European commission because they would strip several departments of powers and resources, concentrating them in the EU's relatively new diplomatic service headed by Catherine Ashton, a Briton.

The document demanded a "substantial revision" of the powers of the European External Action Service by next year, streamlining it and giving it authority over development, energy, trade and enlargement currently vested in other parts of the commission. If realised, the changes would produce a European foreign ministry with much more muscle.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...?newsfeed=true

So yea, that's part two of the plan to create this crazy USE.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Source:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...?newsfeed=true

Realistically Britain will block or exclude itself from this.

[Treize]

Yea, sorry. I forgot the link.

[Stavroforos]

I don't understand why Europe needs a separate alliance out of NATO, and creating an EU army would be only something for those militarists and neo-imperialists to gloat over, considering its practical uses would be minimal in an organization such as the EU, unless it became a completely federal entity.

[Treize]

unless it became a completely federal entity.

Well, that's what they are pushing so hard for nowadays.

[Mangalore]

I don't understand why Europe needs a separate alliance out of NATO, and creating an EU army would be only something for those militarists and neo-imperialists to gloat over, considering its practical uses would be minimal in an organization such as the EU, unless it became a completely federal entity.

money, money, money. The theoretical issue is that a European defense force could pool resources and assets in a central fashion and cut down on the 27 independant bureaucratic apparatus the member states have themselves. It becomes increasingly ineffective to maintain high tech weapon systems without creating pan European projects anyway. Assuming we want to keep the strategic capability to build this stuff ourselves to a large degree this is an issue.

From the article:

"Aim for a European defence policy with joint efforts regarding the defence industry (eg the creation of a single market for armament projects); for some members of the group this could eventually involve a European army."

This is the main reason for a European defense organization. It is also the reason NATO is not covering this.
Additionally the issue is that Europe actually has a different strategic situation than the USA.

And finally: In NATO the US is the sole leading force simply because all the European countries are scattered all over the place and cannot and do not bring to bear the same contribution as the US. Exchanging the current NATO where the US leads two dozens small countries around into a kind of bilateral alliance where the US and Europe have similar (or at least 3:1/3:2). NATO could actually benefit from it since the US might be turning towards the Pacific and NATO kind of assigning responsibilities better so Europe has to be able to care for Europe's security wouldn't be really out of place (this again however cuts into the fact that a good number of EU countries need to slash their military budgets to restore their finances and thus seek ways to compensate by increasing efficiency by pooling resources with other EU countries).

NATO is the partnership between the US and European countries. It doesn't go away if Europe pools and focusses its military endevours to be organized more centrally.


Overall I don't think an European army would be differently structured in units. Just the procurement and assignment of strategic components like airlift would change since that stuff is the expensive things we do not really need 27 versions of.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

I don't understand why Europe needs a separate alliance out of NATO, and creating an EU army would be only something for those militarists and neo-imperialists to gloat over, considering its practical uses would be minimal in an organization such as the EU, unless it became a completely federal entity.

Yes, I agree. I am broadly pro European integration of powers like finance and economic policy, with some coordination of interior, foreign and welfare policy. That's a very small area of governance. But think military policy is one of the things that should remain firmly under the power of individual states.

What we got here is a German-led EU plan to create a single EU military, a single EU border force, a European government, the national parliaments as a senate, no more veto's not even for EU foreign policy and for the ESM evolve into a EMF (the IMF is not good enough?).

Now there's something I can get behind. Perhaps not an entirely unified force, but at least a small force at the European level to further tackle the problem of illegal immigration. Surely you can empathize with that?

[trance]

The hillarity, my country of origin has no use whatsoever for more cooperation with southern Europe. All the successfull countries lose big-time in the long run at being tighter with the likes of Spain, Italy, Ireland, Greece or even France. No offense to nationals of mentioned countries, but there's just nothing in it for northern europe in general.

[Axeman]

I for one welcome the rise of a tripolar global partition.

So Britain, will it be the Americans of the Euros?

[Comrade_Rory]

The further from America, the better.
Unfortunately, that's not how the morons in the government will see it.

[nein]

oceania has aways been at war with eurasia

[Stavroforos]

The further from America, the better.
Unfortunately, that's not how the morons in the government will see it.

Indeed, that is true. I mean, if only America was Britain's largest trade partner and if they had helped Britain win WWI and save her during WWII, then I guess they'd have a chance to be America's favorite. Good thing that's not the case, and Europe has always been supportive of Britain.

[Comrade_Rory]

Indeed, that is true. I mean, if only America was Britain's largest trade partner and if they had helped Britain win WWI and save her during WWII, then I guess they'd have a chance to be America's favorite. Good thing that's not the case, and Europe has always been supportive of Britain.

Funny, I don't remember America saving Britain in either war

America doesn't need Britain, Britain doesn't need America.
Britain needs Europe and Europe would be better off with Britain.

To be brutally honest, nothing America has done has really benefited Britain ever. It's always been a case of America offering help and then holding it's hand out for some money and then acting like it's some sort of saint.
You know... like the Mafia and their protection rackets.

[Bobz]

The further from America, the better.
Unfortunately, that's not how the morons in the government will see it.

Or most of the country.

All an EU army would do is suck up money to support a command structure that would probably never be used. I am assuming the actual soldiers would still be part of national armies, can't see who would support it otherwise.

[s.rwitt]

To be brutally honest, nothing America has done has really benefited Britain ever.

lol

Not much of a history guy, are you?

[justicar5]

lol

Not much of a history guy, are you?

If he had added the qualifier 'in the last 20 years' he would have had a point.

[Comrade_Rory]

lol

Not much of a history guy, are you?

Ok, maybe I was exaggerating a little.
The lend-lease was great help to Britain during WWII. It gave Britain the chance to go on the offensive again.
Britain easily defended itself without the help but they would never have had the ability to strike back.

I mean, I have no problem with Americans. I just don't see why we should glorify things that the US has done and make them out to be anything other than a good investment for them.
The US has never done anything to help Britain that it didn't see a potential profit in and the chance to make a rival poorer.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I mean, I have no problem with Americans. I just don't see why we should glorify things that the US has done and make them out to be anything other than a good investment for them.
The US has never done anything to help Britain that it didn't see a potential profit in and the chance to make a rival poorer.

I guess it depends on what you call "America." Wall Street usually profits from financial and other dealings with Britain. When the Federal Reserve spent the first two decades of its existence playing with interest rates to flush US gold to Britain and prop up the pound, the Wall Street titans privy to that arrangement made out nicely. When the US spent billions aiding a starving Britain in WWI and WW2, the Wall Street firms that financed that aid made more money than ever thought possible. If you consider the average American citizen, however, no, we haven't profited in the least bit in these high-profile transnational finance operations, nor were we consulted. In some ways, Ye Olde Britanny has made out rather handsomely in the past at the expense of her estranged and prosperous child.

US material aid in both World Wars saved Britain from surrender, and it could be argued that the famous additional military aid in WW2 literally saved the Allies. Anyway, I would just as soon have stayed home and kept my foodstuffs and weapons, because now it appears you Euros think people of vastly different cultures and languages are going to form a unified military after they spent some three millennia slaughtering and pillaging each other.

[Caelius]

people seem to quickly forget that Libya was france and the UK's pet project that they dragged the US into and not the other way around

Wouldn't be the first time Europe has dragged the US into something it really had no stake in.

Mossadegh in '53, Suez in '56, Vietnam, Kosovo, the list goes on and on....

[s.rwitt]

In no particular order: you would have starved to death without lend lease. Even in WW1 our numbers and equipment were what made forcing Germany to accept an unconditional surrender possible. The UK and France had been bled white at that point. Your friendship with the US during the Falklands helped far more than what seems to be commonly believed in Britain, I'm sure you've seen the quote at least once about your defense of the Falklands not being possible without our help. American money rebuilt Western Europe after WW2. NATO, and the American muscle behind it, kept the Soviets at bay during the worst parts of the Cold War.