France and Germany have been working to establish a joint defense fund to start in 2017 and will reportedly have support of EU banks. In related story, Germany and the Netherlands work on development of a joint defensive arrangement including an surface-to-air missile; all these dynamism in the EU following the Brexit point to possible formation of the EU Army, also referred to in the 28th EU Summit report on Global Strategy, where new operational and military infrastructure and a joint command center had been highlighted.
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen have spearheaded a specifically more European style of the military role playing which she believed had been long overdue. “The EU should not remain silent and aloof in the face of major crisis; we should welcome shift of priorities so that we see the other side of the events ruling the globe,” she said.
The EU Army once proposed by Javier Solana of Spain and former EU foreign policy chief, calls for improvements in strategic capabilities and resources. Jean Claude Juncker, the head of European Council believes that NATO lacked the qualities for the defense of the EU since many EU members are not NATO allies; the EU has been systematically a second force under the aegis of the US in many of Middle Eastern adventures of the latter and followed merely its policies. Now however, with the Britain voting to leave the EU, members seek to play more independent role in global arena vis-à-vis the US and Russia.
Payman Yazdani of Mehr News International Service asked the same questions in an interview with Mr. Łukasz Kulesa, former adviser to Polish president and an EU personality. He believed that there is little real political support for the EU Army and the outcome of the attempts would be merely a small command center formed by the member states to better organize EU missions, to which Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen pointed to as well speaking to Kurdish Peshmerga and German Bundeswehr soldiers during her visit to the educational center Banslawa near Erbil, Iraq in last September. “She insisted the goal of the initiative was not to found a European army, but to tackle projects already covered under the EU treaty but never fully realized,” wrote Rueters, quoting the minister.
NATO chief Stoltenberg has recently announced that NATO has entered an era where it should try to promote stability beyond its borders. Does this mean that NATO will consider preemptive measures as well?
For NATO, the No. 1 task is the protection and defense of its member states. However, since the 1990s, it has put stability beyond its border as its task NO. 2: that explains its involvement in the Balkans in the 1990s, the long operation in Afghanistan, anti-piracy operation off the Somali coast, and the training mission in Iraq. However, I do not think that NATO or its members would be prepared to act pre-emptively. The focus in future will not on acting alone, but rather on supporting those countries and governments which are fighting the same challenges as NATO members, for example terrorism.
Will NATO enter a phase to react to violation of human rights based on the principle of "responsibility to protect"?
NATO operation in Kosovo in 1999 was a response to the gross violations of human rights done by the Serbian army. Several NATO countries also took part in the Libyan operation against Kaddafi, motivated partly by his atrocities against civilians. Yet, I think the era of big 'humanitarian interventions' are over. After the experiences of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, NATO countries are reluctant to intervene on under 'responsibility to protect' unless there is a direct danger for them. As we can see in Syria - despite the human suffering there was no decision by the West to intervene on the ground.
There are some speculations about formation of EU Army. Is formation of such an army possible? Wouldn’t formation of such a possible army weaken NATO?
There are two levels of the discussion on European Army. On one level, there are very ambitious visions of creating joint military units in Europe under the EU flag. This is however completely unrealistic: there is no real political support for such a force, which would remain outside national control. On another level, there is a lot of interesting discussions about better cooperation between the forces that take part in the EU missions. Part of this discussion is the idea of creating a small command structure for EU missions. This is very likely to happen after Britain leaves the EU. But this would not be a 'real' European army - the forces would still be coming from specific member states.
Why has Britain usually opposed and vetoed formation of EU Army? Will Britain refrain from joining such an army in case of possible formation?
Britain has always thought that the discussions about EU army can lead to transferring power from member states to EU level in Brussels, which Britain opposed. It also worried that more cooperation at the EU would weaken the role of NATO. As Britain is preparing to leave the European Union, it would prefer that military cooperation remains in NATO, where it will still remain an important member.
Łukasz Kulesa is Research Director at the European Leadership Network.
Interview by: Payman Yazdani