The EU Commission’s new incoming president, Ursula von der Leyen, has echoed the words of her predecessor, Jean Claude Junker, as well as other senior EU leaders saying that there will be a European army “under one command”.
The plans for an EU army were kicked into high gear since the adoption of PESCO, which is the Permanent Structured Cooperation is the part of the European Union’s security and defence policy in which 25 of the 28 national armed forces pursue structural integration.
The Irish government signed up to this agreement in December 2017 with little fanfare or media attention.
The move came as part of the structural integration within the Common Security and Defence Policy, based on Article 42.6 of the Treaty on European Union which also includes the development of a shared EU foreign policy.
In the past several months several senior EU leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have insisted that the EU will eventually have its own military made up of the amalgamated defence forces of the various EU member states.
With the upcoming departure of the UK from the EU, one of the major stumbling blocks for the development of an EU army will be gone, as the UK’s commitment to NATO led it to taking a strong stance against the bloc creating its own defence force.
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