‘We should work on the vision of one day creating a real European army,” said German chancellor Angela Merkel to the European Parliament this week. His demand that European states pay more opens up the case for European defence and security autonomy in response. A European Defence Fund, an annual review of defence budgets and a peace facility signal a more comprehensive effort to create a European structure complementing Nato’s. The case for greater European security and defence cooperation is unanswerable in the face of these changes. It is protected constitutionally and by treaty from being bounced into unwanted defence co-operation without a referendum.

Source: The Irish Times November 16, 2018 00:00 UTC