The EU must learn the lessons of the abrupt end of the US-led mission in Afghanistan and acquire the “political will” to build up its own military force to deploy to future crises, the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said.

In her annual state of the union speech in the European parliament in Strasbourg, Von der Leyen, a former German defence minister, said the withdrawal of the US-led mission in Afghanistan, and the subsequent collapse of President Ashraf Ghani’s administration, raised troubling questions.

“In the last weeks, there have been many discussions on expeditionary forces. On what type and how many we need: battlegroups or EU entry forces,” Von der Leyen said. “This is no doubt part of the debate – and I believe it will be part of the solution.”

But she said there was a more “fundamental” problem in the EU capitals. “You can have the most advanced forces in the world – but if you are never prepared to use them – of what use are they?” she said. “What has held us back until now is not just a shortfall of capacity – it is the lack of political will. And if we develop this political will, there is a lot that we can do at EU level.”

A lack of investment in defence by EU governments and concerns about the risk of undermining Nato, held in particular by the EU’s eastern member states, have been among the main obstacles to establishing a united European military wing. General government expenditure in the EU’s 27 member states on defence stood at 1.2% of GDP in 2019 compared with 3.4% in the US.

Von der Leyen said she was working with the Nato general secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, on issuing a “new declaration” on EU-Nato relations by the end of the year. Six EU member states are not in the military alliance – Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta and Sweden.

Von der Leyen said there would be crises where the EU’s own military force should operate independently from both the UN and Nato. “On the ground, our soldiers work side-by-side with police officers, lawyers and doctors, with humanitarian workers and human rights defenders, with teachers and engineers,” she said.

The idea of common defence, one attacked by some critics of the EU as evidence of nation building, has a long and tortured history.

Two EU battlegroups of 1,500 troops, which are supposed to be filled on a rotating basis by member states, were established in 2007 but they have never been deployed, in part due to being undermanned.

Beyond mustering the will and capacity to put boots on the ground, Von der Leyen said the EU’s intelligence services and other agencies needed to share information. She also suggested that to build up the EU’s defence sector, and ensure that equipment used by European armies was “interoperable”, VAT could be waived on purchases from local arms dealers.

A leaders’ summit dedicated to European defence will be convened by Von der Leyen and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in the first half of next year, when France holds the rolling presidency of the EU. “It is time for Europe to step up to the next level,” Von der Leyen said.

Germany’s current defence minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, said: “Ursula
Von der Leyen is right […]Real EU defence depends on the political will of member states. That’s why Germany and France must lead.”

(Source: The Guardian)