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The European Union (EU) is going through an “existential crisis” that can only be solved through more military integration, Turkish accession and the creation of a “true union”, EU chiefs have said. In a document on the political union’s foreign policy objectives in light of the UK’s vote to leave, EU officials call for a “stronger Europe” the draws on “the combined weight of a true union”.

Visiting Berlin on Wednesday (2 June) NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Germany is “at the heart of Europe and of the NATO Alliance”. Speaking with the media in a joint press conference with Chancellor Merkel, Mr. Stoltenberg said that Germany makes “outstanding contributions” to NATO operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo. “You play a major role in our Baltic Air Policing mission, and you also have a lead role in our new high-readiness joint task force, and Germany was key in establishing our presence in the Aegean Sea coping with the migrant and refugee crisis”, he said. The Secretary...

Those who prefer their mobile phone to remain anonymous are in for a shock in Germany, as ministers agreed on Wednesday to require anyone buying a pay-as-you-go SIM card to present ID. “You could buy a prepaid phone today in the name of Donald Duck,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said after the weekly cabinet meeting. “Knowledge is power. And we want to oppose terrorist organizations powerfully,” he went on in a press conference defending the new anti-terror law that the rule falls under. […] “The new anti-terror package mixes up widely varying enlargements of powers for the security services...

Plans to move towards the creation of a European army are reportedly being kept secret from British voters until the day after next month’s referendum. Drawn up by the EU’s foreign policy chief, the Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy foresees the formation of new European military and operational structures. This first step towards an EU army is supported by Germany and other countries, The Times reports. In 2011, similar proposals were vetoed by Britain, although there were concerns that a loophole could allow nine states to group together to bypass opponents. In an effort to avoid derailing the...

Trying to bring all of Europe’s security forces under one roof to fight terrorism would be more trouble than it’s worth, Germany’s Interior Minister said on Sunday. “A European counter-terror center would have to bring together 28 states with innumerable authorities… transferring the German model to Europe would hardly work,” (Thomas) de Maizière told Tagesspiegel am Sonntag. Germany’s Public Prosecutor General Peter Frank and the German Police Union (DPolG) had previously called for the EU to copy Germany’s joint terror defense center after it emerged that European countries had not shared intelligence that could have helped stop attacks in Brussels...

Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called on Tuesday for a “European pact for freedom and security” following the attacks in Brussels claimed by the ISIS group that killed around 35 people. “Today they hit Belgium, but they also hit the capital of the European Union,” Renzi said in a speech, vowing that “it will take months, perhaps years, but we will beat them”. […] “Europe must go all the way this time. We must invest in a common security and defense structure,” he said, adding that the debate over defense integration has been raging since 1954, when a plan to...

BRUSSELS has been urged to deploy its own armed forces within the EU for the first ever time in a move which would sound the death knell for European democracy. European leaders are being asked to dispatch troops to Greece - the cradle of democracy - to combat the spiralling migrant crisis. If the plan is put into action it would be the first ever time that the EU has deployed its own forces, which typically carry out peace missions abroad, within the 28-nation bloc. But the move could be fiercely opposed by Greece, which would see it as the...

BERLIN — A European Union military force with power to intervene in member states. A new “Marshall Plan” to radically redesign whole regions of the world and impose regional government. A United Nations empowered to manage it all. Christendom under siege. And the end of nationhood as it is understood today. That is where the “refugee crisis” is heading, as the engineered disaster wreaks havoc across Europe and beyond. Despite the appearance of chaos, though, it is all by design, with a series of radical goals in mind.While the establishment’s demands on Europe to accept millions of Middle Eastern refugees...

The fight against ISIS will not be won with military action but by bringing an end to the civil war in Syria around the negotiating table, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Monday. "We stand before the dilemma that the battle against ISIS must be continued, but everyone also knows that in the end the battle against terrorism can't be won militarily," Steinmeier told journalists as he arrived at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels. "I personally remain convinced that... we will only move forward in the Middle East if, above all, we work energetically on those questions which...

Angela Merkel will expect David Cameron to drop his opposition to an EU army in exchange for supporting Britain’s renegotiation, the Telegraph has been told. The German chancellor will ask Britain to stand aside as she promotes an ambitious blueprint to integrate continental Europe’s armed forces. It comes as Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, said Britain will get a deal if it gives the green light to a raft of powerful new EU institutions. A Berlin source said agreeing not to “block” Merkel’s defense plans is a “favor” that she would seek from Mr Cameron as he looks...

An EU army is Germany’s ‘long term goal’ according to one of its ministers. Ursula von der Leyen called for defence cooperation to be strengthened so that the continent can respond quickly to international crises.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has advocated a combined EU military force, suggesting two major benefits: to improve the bloc’s standing on the world stage, and to send a message to Moscow. Juncker told the Welt am Sonntag Sunday paper that forming an EU army would be one of the best ways for the bloc to defend its values, as well as its borders. “An army like this would help us to better coordinate our foreign and defense policies, and to collectively take on Europe’s responsibilities in the world,” Juncker told the weekly. “Europe’s image has suffered dramatically and also...

On Wednesday, October 29th, the Defense Minister was a honorary guest of Bundeswehr commanding cadre and management conference chaired by German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. “A strong democratic Europe needs a strong Germany and strong Poland. The power does not only mean economic power, economic links. It is not only about certainty that our values are right. Power also includes ability of defense, it is also a military power, the power of Bundeswehr and Polish Armed Forces,” said Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense Tomasz Siemoniak in Berlin. […] Moreover, Defense Ministers talked about the situation in Ukraine,...

The European Union must pull closer together and establish a strong military presence, so it can act as a “moral anchor” to the United States, the economist Kenneth Rogoff has warned. Speaking ahead of next week’s European elections, Mr. Rogoff, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, said the EU should strive to become more “like a single country”. […] He added: “It would be a very good investment of German taxpayers’ money to write down debt in the periphery countries. There are a lot of ways to do it. You can be very opaque about it. The...

German President Joachim Gauck has said his country should put aside World War II anxieties and play a bigger military role abroad. “While there are genuine pacifists in Germany, there are also people who use Germany’s guilt for its past as a shield for laziness,” he said on Friday (31 January) at the Munich Security Conference, a yearly meeting of European and US security chiefs. “This [guilt] gives Germany a questionable right to look the other way … Restraint can be taken too far.” […] “By acting with other countries within the EU, Germany gains influence … Perhaps this could...

NATO called on European Union leaders Thursday to work on improving their defense cooperation in the face of dwindling military budgets or face American disengagement. British Prime Minister David Cameron came straight from World War I’s battlefields in western Belgium to tell a summit of the 28 EU leaders to stand together to meet new defense challenges, even as he rejected pooling resources under a common EU flag. […] Still, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told the leaders to move swiftly since the United States might be inclined to weaken its military relationship, which dates back almost a century...

The European Union is working to establish a credible army in Mali, where radical Islamists took control of the north after a military coup, the EU commission president said Friday. Jose Manuel Barroso spoke alongside Benin's President Thomas Boni Yayi, who addressed reporters for the first time since allegedly evading an assassination attempt involving poison pills. … European leaders have vowed to back a proposed African force that may be sent to flush out the Islamists, but have said their support will not include EU combat troops. …

European Union directive forced the Ministry of Defence to review their "close-combat" role. Under the Equal Treatment Directive, the MoD said it had to carry out the study despite a similar review in 2002 concluding that the policy to employ only male personnel in close combat roles should remain. Lance Corporal Amy Thomas, is thought to be the first British woman to fire on the frontline in Afghanistan Servicewomen are currently excluded from roles where they are likely to "deliberately close with and kill the enemy face-to-face". Brigadier Richard Nugee, the Army's Director of Manning, is leading the review that...

PARIS When Michèle Alliot-Marie was named France's defense minister three years ago, she was so surprised and unprepared that she had to ask her partner to teach her to march. He taught her in their living room. Since then, marching has become second nature to Alliot-Marie, and she has become one of Europe's most vocal defenders of an independent defense arm for the European Union. On Wednesday, Alliot-Marie, 58, took her message to an international symposium here on the future of European defense. Her message: Europeans need to increase military spending by billions of euros a year to be competitive...

THE European Union is to develop unmanned drones, new armoured vehicles and advanced communication systems in a strategy to become a military superpower and close the defence technology gap with the United States. The programme involves setting up a joint EU fighter-pilot training programme and co-ordinating the testing of military equipment on proving grounds and in wind tunnels. The initiatives from the newly-created European Defence Agency represent the EU’s first step in military research and development. They are aimed at transforming the EU from being solely a political power, in charge of policies such as agriculture and trade, to a...