{"id":690200,"date":"2026-01-12T03:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T03:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/690200\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T03:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T03:16:16","slug":"eu-may-need-100000-strong-army-says-defense-commissioner-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/690200\/","title":{"rendered":"EU may need 100,000-strong army, says defense commissioner \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIf our answer is\u00a0&#8216;no,\u2019 [the] USA would not be stronger, then \u2014 what are we waiting for?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kubilius said Europe&#8217;s defense readiness depends on three pillars: more investment in production capacity; institutions that are prepared and organization; and the political will to deter and, if needed, fight.<\/p>\n<p>Merely increasing funding for Europe\u2019s existing defense setup won\u2019t meet these requirements, he said, in part because of a lack of unity.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/13630392-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7745757\"  \/>Andrius Kubilius said Europe&#8217;s defense readiness depends on  more investment in production, institutions that are prepared and the political will to deter and, if needed, fight. | Antonio Pedro Santos\/EPA<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need to start to invest our money in such a way, that we would be able to fight as Europe, not just as collection of 27 national\u00a0\u2018bonsai armies\u2019,\u201d he said, borrowing a phrase from former EU High Representative Josep Borrell.<\/p>\n<p>Europe could instead create \u2014 &#8220;as Jean-Claude Juncker, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel already proposed 10 years ago&#8221; a powerful, standing\u00a0\u201cEuropean military force\u201d of 100,000 troops, he said.<\/p>\n<p>To help solve the issue of political will, Kubilius wants to establish a European Security Council. The idea has been talked up by French President Macron and former German Chancellor Merkel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIf our answer is\u00a0&#8216;no,\u2019 [the] USA would not be stronger, then \u2014 what are we waiting for?\u201d Kubilius&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[44693,9216,473,2000,299,5187,2816,1699,366,1197,43,2597,811,15,49,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-690200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-andrius-kubilius","9":"tag-council-presidency","10":"tag-defense","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-politics","15":"tag-european-union","16":"tag-greenland","17":"tag-investment","18":"tag-macron","19":"tag-military","20":"tag-security","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115879961134045934","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}