Military of the European Union
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The European Union is not a state and does not have its own dedicated military forces. An early attempt (1952) to form a European Defence Community failed, and no similar project has been proposed since. As some of the 27 EU member states are also members of NATO, some EU states cooperate on defense policy (collective security) albeit primarily through NATO rather than through the EU or aligned group (such as the Western European Union). However, the memberships of the EU, WEU, and NATO are distinct, and some EU member states are constitutionally committed to remain neutral on defence issues. Several of the new EU member states were formerly members of the Warsaw Pact.
One of the issues that the European Constitution, which currently possesses an uncertain future, was going to address would have closed down the WEU as a separate organisation and have the EU institutions take on the WEU's defence role. The EU currently has a limited mandate over defence issues, with a role to explore the issue of European defence agreed to in the Amsterdam Treaty, as well as oversight of the European Rapid Reaction Force. However, some EU states may and do make multilateral agreements about defence issues outside of the EU structures.
On the 23 of March, 2007, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, gave an interview in celebration of the EU's fiftieth birthday, in which she expressed the desire for a unified EU Army.
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[edit] Co-operation
The EU primarily acts through it's Common Foreign and Security Policy, though Denmark has an opt-out from this and some states are limited by neutrality issues. As a result forces under EU command have been for peacekeeping, which European states have a great deal of experience in.
- See also the European Security and Defence Policy.
If all the member state's annual spending was taken as a bloc the figure would amount to over $220 billion, second only to the US military's $518 billion. [1] However the effect of this is much less due to duplication of capacities in individual militaries, there have been efforts to overcome this with joint projects such as the Eurofighter and through joint procurement of equipment
[edit] Deployment
In 2004 EU countries took over leadership of the mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina from NATO through the European Union Force (EUFOR). The mission was given the branding of an EU initiative as the EU sponsored the force to further the force's image of legitimacy. There have been other deployments such as in Gaza and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Recently the European High Representative for Foreign Policy Javier Solana has indicated the EU could send troops to Georgia, perhaps alongside Russian forces.[2]
- See pages of individual forces below for details or ESDP Deployments.
[edit] Military forces and groups
- European Union battle groups
- European Rapid Reaction Force
- EUFOR
- Eurocorps
- European Gendarmerie Force
- European Union Military Staff
[edit] Actors, agencies and policies
- European Security and Defence Policy
- Common Foreign and Security Policy
- European Security and Defence Identity
- European Council
- European Defence Agency
- European Union Institute for Security Studies
- Western European Union
- North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
- Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
[edit] References
- ^ European - United States Defence Expenditure in 2005 (HTML). EDA (2006). Retrieved on 2007-02-02.
- ^ Solana raises prospect of EU soldiers in Georgia EU Observer
[edit] See also
- European Union Association Agreement
- Council of the European Union
- European Defence Community
- History of the European Union
- Three pillars of the European Union
- European Aeronautic Defence and Space
- BAE Systems
- Military of Norway
- Military of the United States
- Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
- Military of the People's Republic of China
