74% of French voters want a common EU defence policy, incl. a European army

36 comments
  1. Now ask those people how it would work. Would it exist alongside the national armies or replace them? How is it funded? Who is in control?

  2. With Russia at the gates, China getting more and more aggressive and the nightmare of a possible Trump return at the White House, I fail to see how one could not want a more united Europe.

  3. Y’all saying “how is this possible? how will it be managed?”

    First of all, people had the same questions when the European Coal & Steel Community was created, and look at EU now – it’s more integrated than anyone would have ever imagined 60 years ago.

    Secondly, Reddit is not to answer this question. The European politicians are. If you have worries about the creation of such army, when, where, what, if, then ask your local European representative.

    Best you will find here is opinions.

    Edit: Rephrased last sentence

  4. There can’t be a EU army without first creating a EU taxation and EU federal government. Btw I’m totally into the United States of Europe.

  5. Context for people not familiar with the current French political landscape:

    * Ensemble des Français (74%) = all French voters combined
    * La France Insoumise (78%) = Far left party of candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, otherwise rather euroskeptic
    * PS (85%) and EELV (82%) = Social democrats and greens, they don’t play a big role in the coming elections, pro-EU
    * Ensemble Citoyens ! (92%) = President Macron’s party
    * Les Républicains (80%) = The traditional (center-) right party, mostly pro-EU, their candidate is expected to be one of Macron’s two most important challengers
    * Rassemblement National (62%) = The party of Marine Le Pen, the other important challenger of Macron, euroskeptic nationalist populists
    * Reconquête ! (40%) = The party of Éric Zemmour, a far right national-conservative polemist who entered the presidential race, euroskeptic too
    * Sans préférence politique (66%) = Without political affiliation

  6. it’s common sense, they learned well from being pulled from Belgium in WW2

    we have a shared external border, it’s everyone’s duty to help the periphery countries defend it

  7. As a German I have been asking for this for years now.
    European countries pay way too much for defense compared to what they get out, thanks to the inefficiencies of having different companies produce small number of arms, vehicles, etc.

    Having a common EU Army would make it possible to alleviate some of these costs by more countries coming together and working together. Like with ESA for example.

    I am not saying all countries should disband their own armies from day one, but a step by step plan over the years or even decades would make a lot of sense.

    This would for example make it possible to have internal cyber security or secret services, while we have a army consisting of troops, pilots, and so on which work together.
    They could be more effectively used to protect common borders, which would alleviate stress from countries on the eastern edge of the EU, while also strengthening cooperation.

    I am an all anti war guy. My health would disqualify me the moment I walk into a test center.
    But if it really came down to it, I would not hesitate to work in IT to help protect my European brothers and sisters.
    Even if it is Russia, where I am originally from and are majority Russian (I think 25% German 75% Russian, more or less at least, I have also polish, Ukrainian and Kazakh family).

    While democracy is loosing ground in more and more countries, the EU should stand firm to protect and be a global representation of it. We had a dark past. But we changed. We should be proud of what our ancestors and we now created and work together to protect what we achieved.

    I would also agree with including more countries into the EU like Kosovo for example.
    The people I meet from there are really nice.
    They deserve to be protected and having their independence.

  8. Are you going to send out soldiers to die based on a qualified majority vote?
    A country that would disagree with a war would have to send soldiers because the rest of the EU says so?

    This would never work.

  9. Does not surprise me. We Europeans need to be able to defend ourselves from Russia and China without having to rely on the Americans. At this point, even the Americans—Biden *and* Trump—want Europe to stand on its own two feet when it comes to defence policy.

  10. Because as it stands now the France is the only EU country with a decent military so they’ll obviously take the lead

  11. It doesn’t matter how you call it, but at the very least you need to have a highly *integrated* army where individual nations can have bilateral agreements on funding, if they trust each other.

  12. And a majority of several other countries don’t want a common EU army. Stop trying to fucking turn the EU into one country, it’s not gonna work, it’s going to split up our union instead. We already lost the UK, is that not enough?

  13. It might not be the best example but the French foreign legion is technically an army of soldiers from all over the world who managed to work together.

    They might not be the best example for a European Union army but it’s a proof it’s definitely possibly to have one army with people from multiple countries united and working together.

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