European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is calling for the European Union to have its own army to protect Europe and its values, The Financial Times reported Monday.
As the Ukrainian crisis continues to divide Russia from the rest of Europe, Juncker stressed the creation of an army would let the union "react credibly to threats to peace in a member state or a neighbor of the EU," he told the German newspaper Die Welt.
Such an army would "help us to develop a common foreign and security policy and to fulfill Europe's responsibility to the world," Juncker, the former prime minister of Luxemburg, said. Supporters of the idea pointed out troops would be controlled by the European Parliament instead individual member states.
"I support Juncker in building an EU army if it means the termination of all EU member states' armies and is controlled by the European Parliament," tweeted European Parliament member Jan Philipp Albrecht, one of many German politicians who showed solidarity with an EU army.
The Baltic states Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia also welcomed the idea of an army that could check their Russian neighbors, who have been accused by the U.S. and NATO of funding and supplying rebels fighting against Ukraine forces in the year-long conflict. Over 6,000 have so far been killed.
The very idea of terminating a national army, however, is what set the U.K. against Juncker's proposal.
"Our position is crystal clear that defense is a national, not an EU responsibility and that there is no prospect of that position changing and no prospect of a European army," a U.K. government spokesperson said Sunday, The FT reported.
Junker said the EU would be better equipped at providing protection than NATO security forces because not all union members are members of the alliance. But on that note critics accused Junker of living in a "fantasy world."
"If our nations faced a serious security threat, who would we want to rely on- NATO or the EU?" Geoffrey Van Orden, an MEP, told The Guardian. "The question answers itself."
