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Friday, 07 May 2021_Military chiefs suggest the Trump era and Brexit prove the EU can no longer depend on Washington and London when it comes to defense. At a meeting of EU defense ministers in Brussels it was confirmed that the US, Canada and Norway are to join elements of PESCO, Permanent Structured Cooperation, better known as the EU army.
With 21 of the 29 NATO members are EU nations, NATO officials are said to be nervous that the EU army undermines the alliance. The head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, was invited to the defense ministers' meeting. He took the opportunity to once again criticize Russia.
Moscow insists it is only interested in defense, not attack. So, is the EU using Russia as an excuse to line the pockets of the arms industry? Many analysts believe so. Combined, EU nations spend around €200bn per year on their own individual armies. They spend billions more on NATO and now billions more on the EU army project.
Campaigners insist, a move towards a heavily militarized super state and away from a socially just society will ultimately lead to the demise of the European Union because, they argue, in time citizens will vote in huge numbers against the political establishment.
Peace activists are critical of lawmakers for not blocking moves to expand the EU army.
And there is a great deal of hypocrisy, according to political scientists. Western nations continue to spend astonishing amounts of money on war machines during a global pandemic. At the same time they criticize others for developing their defense capabilities, for example Russia and Iran.
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