Defence can ‘no longer be outsourced’ to US, Juncker tells EU
EU MEMBER states can no longer rely on the United States to defend them, the head of the European Commission said yesterday, as he urged the bloc to forge a stronger military alliance.
Jean-claude Juncker, the EC president, said he could “see the tide turning” and warned that the protection of Europe could “no longer be outsourced” as he unveiled a multi-billion euro plan to help fund European defence research. “Nato can no longer be used as a convenient alibi to argue against greater European efforts,” he told a defence and security conference in Prague.
“[The United States] is no longer interested in guaranteeing Europe’s security.
“We have no other choice than to de- fend our own interests in the Middle East, in climate change, in our trade agreements.”
US president Donald Trump has frequently criticised Nato, which he once dismissed as “obsolete” and has demanded that its 22 EU members pay a larger share of its defence costs.
It comes after Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the EU could no longer “completely depend” on the US and the UK following Mr Trump’s election victory and the Brexit vote.
“We Europeans have to take our destiny into our own hands,” she said in May, after returning from G7 climate change talks in Taormina, Italy, which she had already described as “deeply unsatisfactory”.
Her relationship with the US president soured even further last week when Mr Trump decided to pull the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement.
Britain has long been opposed to European defence integration, as some fear it could create an “EU Army” which would undermine national sovereignty.
The European Commission, however, insists that the policy would merely foster co-operation between member states and reduce wastage in some areas.
It recently published a white paper which showed that EU member states had 178 different types of weapon systems, while the US had only 30.
“Absurdly, there are more helicopter types then there are governments to buy them,” Mr Juncker said. The leaders of the EU nation’s, including Britain, will meet at a summit in Brussels on June 22-23 to discuss the defence plans, first put forward by France and Germany following the Brexit referendum a year ago.
Mr Juncker stressed that the EU would not try to compete with Nato.
He said: “Nato has been and will remain the cornerstone of European security for decades. We are different but we complement each other.”