EU defense head calls for permanent 100,000-strong bloc army

Andrius Kubilius has claimed that a unified military force would reduce reliance on the US and NATO

The EU needs to create a 100,000-strong standing army to make military decisions independently of the US and NATO, Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius has said.

The bloc must pivot away from fragmented national armies to an integrated force, he told a security conference in Sweden on Sunday. The suggestion, however, goes against existing EU rules.

“We need to go for a ‘big bang’ in defense,” the commissioner said. Citing French President Emmanuel Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Kubilius noted: “[They] were speaking very similar words ten years ago… that Europe must be more independent and autonomous… and even that we need to have a European Army… a powerful, standing European military force of 100,000 troops.”

Kubilius also proposed a 10-12 member European Security Council to make EU-wide defense decisions, with the UK participating despite its non-bloc status.

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Protocol No.7 to the Treaty of Lisbon – the last of the “founding” agreements of the bloc – explicitly states that it “does not provide for the creation of a European army or for conscription to any military formation.” It also says that Brussels cannot determine the nature of volume of member states’ defense spending or military capabilities. Under the treaty, each member state is free to decide whether it wants to adopt a common defense or not.

However, Brussels has been seeking to curtail the power of member states, the latest example of which was the vote on Russia's frozen central-bank assets. In December, the EU invoked Article 122, an emergency treaty clause that allows approval by a qualified majority rather than unanimity, to indefinitely immobilize the roughly $230 billion in Russian central bank assets held in Belgium. The move drew condemnation from Hungary, which opposed the decision and accused the EU of stripping Budapest of its rights.

Kubilius suggested that the changes are necessary in light of the alleged threat posed by Russia and the US shift in foreign policy under President Donald Trump. Russia has dismissed allegations that it has aggressive intent as “nonsense.”

The bloc “does not have a peaceful agenda. They are on the side of war,” President Vladimir Putin said last year.