In recent years, the European Union has relaunched European defence, with the launch of permanent structured cooperation, the EDIDP development programme, the future European Defence Fund and the strengthening of cooperation with NATO.
Although the European Parliament's power on the subject is limited, the main European political parties - the Party of the European Left (PEL), the Party of European Socialists (PES), the European Green Party, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), the European People's Party (EPP) and the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE) - give, in their demonstrations, their views on this European defence.
All support its development, except the PEL, which rejects "totally the Defence Union and the escalation towards militarisation" of the EU. The far left favours social investment rather than "military expansion operations hidden under the pretext of ‘Cooperation for the defence and security of the Union and its citizens’". It calls for "resistance to arms policies designed to militarise the Union" and for the withdrawal of funds invested in armaments. The PEL also supports the abolition of NATO.
The PES and the Greens say they are open to the common security and defence policy and to the pooling of resources at European level, but the Greens are opposed to European funds being invested for military purposes.
Liberals support, "in the long term", "more interpenetration and interoperability of European forces", while recalling that NATO "remains the backbone of military cooperation and the guarantor of collective defence for Europe".
ACRE also emphasises NATO, stressing that strengthening European cooperation must not diminish the Alliance. According to the Conservatives, the acquisition of military equipment between Member States is a necessity.
For the EPP, Europe must take "greater control of its military security". The party believes that by pooling the military capabilities of the Member States, a real defence capability will be created by 2030. Christian Democrats make many proposals, such as the development of a European drone or the creation of a European brigade to fight cyber attacks. Not to mention the 'brigade', the Liberals also call for the strengthening of the capacity of Member States and EU institutions to defend themselves against hybrid threats, such as disinformation, cyber espionage, cyber attacks and cyber crimes.
While no manifesto mentions a future European army, during a debate between top candidates ('Spitzenkandidaten') in early May in Florence, the candidates of the EPP, Germany's Manfred Weber, and especially the ALDE, Belgium's Guy Verhofstadt, had expressed their support for such a long-term project (see EUROPE 12246/2).
"The biggest loss of money in the EU is the way we organise the military sector", he said, advocating a strong "European army" of "20,000 troops in 2024". For Mr Weber, the creation of such an army would make war totally unthinkable.
But the PES candidate, the Netherlands’ Frans Timmermans, had warned against false promises. According to him, "we will not have a European army any time soon". "There is a lack of agreement on foreign policy, how can you talk about a European army", he argued. As for the EGP candidate, German Ska Keller, she had expressed doubts about the governance of a European army: who would agree to an intervention, the President of the Commission? The Parliament? (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)