Macron has shelved plans for an EU army, says Czech president-elect

EMMANUEL MACRON has abandoned his dreams of an EU army, the president-elect of the Czech Republic has revealed.

Petr Pavel said that the French president was now focused on strengthening defence as part of Nato, rather than a common European force.

In 2018, Mr Macron called for the creation of a “real European army” before the Ukraine war focused EU minds on how to boost defence spending.

Mr Pavel, a former Nato general who will be inaugurated next week, told the Euractiv Czechia website: “European defence – I spoke about this in Munich with Macron – is not about declaring that we have a European army or EU army.

“There has already been a big shift by Macron from the European army he was talking about years ago ... to now saying we need to build European defence based on the European pillar of Nato, which I applaud. It is a reasonable shift.”

“If tomorrow a major partner has to look elsewhere, we must be able to act with the Europeans inside or outside Nato and, if necessary, to ensure the command capabilities that will allow us to carry out a large-scale operation together.”

Mr Macron infamously described Nato as “brain-dead” in 2019 and warned that the US was waning in its commitment to the alliance.

He called on the EU to start thinking of itself as a geopolitical power and stop relying on the US so much to defend Europe.

In 2018 he said: “We will not protect Europeans if we do not decide to have a real European army.”

‘There has already been a big shift by Macron from the European army... It is a reasonable shift’