Committee on Security and Defence
A European Army: With NATO and the transatlantic partnership having been unstable, calls for more European strategic sovereignty in foreign policy and military matters have arisen. Seeing how Member States like Germany and Poland have already upscaled their military expenditures, how should the EU follow in potentially mutualising its defence ambitions?
Submitted by: Bobby Blaauw (NL), Tim Hazebroek (NL), Tayma El Yalte (NL), Misha Zwietink (NL), Nikola Pantelić (Chairperson, RS)
The European Youth Parliament,
- Noting the lack of military unity in the EU,
- Aware of the high degree of dependence of some EU Member States on non-EU countries or defence alliances, such as NATO,
- Conscious of the rising threat of China and Russia,
- Taking into account the growing concern amongst EU citizens regarding safety and security,
- Keeping in mind that many EU Member States lag behind in military spending when compared to the great powers1,
- Draws attention to the vast amount of resources misspent by Member States on a yearly basis on duplicate or incompatible military equipment,
- Regrets the lack of a permanent military command structure2 for the EU,
- Concerned by the fact that some Member States may resist efforts to unify European militaries due to differing national interests;
- Proposes the creation of a unified European military consisting of all 27 EU Member States;
- Recommends all EU Member States to implement the agreement made by NATO defence ministers in 2006 regarding an increase of European countries’ military spending to a minimum of 2% of their annual GDP;
- Urges the European Commission to decrease duplicate military spending by initiating a common budgeting policy for all EU Member States;
- Calls upon the Member States to create a unified governing body in charge of managing the European military proposed in OC 1 which includes all Member States’ interests in its decision making process.