EU backs plan to build up its own defensive capabilities

BRUSSELS: The EU’s executive yesterday threw its support behind Franco-German plans to integrate Europe’s militaries and defence industries, offering money and co-ordination to build up depleted forces heavily reliant on the US.

Spurred by Britain’s decision to leave the EU, Brussels has seized on deeper military ties proposed last year by France and Germany to show its citizens that the bloc is still relevant and can provide security in the face of Islamist militant attacks.

“Defence and security is one of the fields through which we can relaunch the EU,” said EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

Failings in Europe’s bombing campaign in Libya in 2011 and Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea have reignited EU defence plans that date back to the 1950s. “This is not about creating an EU army,” said European Commission vice-president Jyrki Katainen. “Nato does not have a Nato army,” he said, stressing that Western military alliances were formed by national forces working together.

Although the EU has more than a dozen military missions abroad, the world’s biggest trading bloc has not been able to match its economic might with broad defensive power, preferring to rely on Nato. The EU was not seeking to compete with Nato, Mogherini said.

But US President Donald Trump’s sharp criticism of European allies for low defence spending and his refusal to fully back the alliance publicly has added to concerns that without the US and Britain, the EU is vulnerable to a host of threats, from cyber to militant attacks.