The European Union’s top diplomat poured cold water on hopes of a single European army on Monday, warning that the possibility would be “dangerous.”
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas spoke against the possibility at a security conference in Norway, arguing that the proposal wasn’t practical.
“Those who say that we need a European army, maybe those people haven’t really thought this through practically,” she said. “If you are already part of NATO, then you can’t create a separate army.”
Kallas argued that the chain of command was the most important military asset during a crisis, and if a separate European military were to form alongside NATO, it would lead to widespread confusion.
“And if you have, like the European army and then you have the NATO [one], then, you know, the ball just falls between the chairs,” she said. “And this is extremely, extremely dangerous.”
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre gave a similar answer regarding a single European army.
“NATO is there with the decision-making process among allies, which is in itself complex, but it is trained to work,” he said, adding that a single European army is “not a road we should travel.”
The possibility of integrating into a European army was a real possibility in the early days of what would become the EU. Many of its founders, still scarred by the horrors of World War II, believed a single, unified army would prevent another such tragedy from occurring.
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The biggest blow to the project in its early days came in 1954, when France’s parliament failed to ratify the single-army treaty. Aside from concerns about national pride, the then-empire was worried that an integrated European Army would be unwilling to deploy to protect its colonies, such as in Algeria. These worries helped strangle the proposal in the crib but hopes have continually resurfaced since then. French President Emmanuel Macron has been a leading proponent of a single European army.
Some European officials had reiterated calls for a single European military after tensions escalated over President Donald Trump’s demands for Denmark.