Guy Verhofstadt calls for EU army capable of launching strikes on Syria

James Crisp, Brussels Correspondent, Strasbourg 17 April 2018 • 11:40am

Despite the Brexit coordinator's views, the concept of an EU army faces stiff opposition across the bloc — The concept of an EU army faces stiff opposition across the bloc Credit: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator, has called for the creation of a European Union army capable of carrying out strikes like those launched by the US, Britain and France in Syria.

Mr Verhofstadt was speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg during a debate on the future of Europe, which was begun with a flagship address by Emmanuel Macron, the French president and poster child for closer EU integration.

The former prime minister of Belgium attacked the EU for its inertia in the face of crisis and called for reforms of “daring and vision” after Brexit.

“Let’s face it, eurosceptics are not always wrong,” Mr Verhofstadt said. “When, as with Brexit, a member state leaves the European family, it can hardly be described as a success”.

“This intervention is fully justified,” he said, describing the attacks on Syria to destroy the country’s ability to produce chemical weapons. “That said this intervention also demonstrates our weakness. France and the United Kingdom launch missiles. Not the European Union as a whole.”

“65 years after the National Assembly torpedoed the European Defence Community, a European army still does not exist,” said Mr Verhofstadt.

The former Belgian prime minister was referring to an unratified 1952 military pact between six founder members of what would become the EU. The Treaty was not ratified by the French and so never entered into force.

Despite the support of Mr Verhofstadt and other senior EU figures including Jean-Claude Juncker, an EU army is far from becoming reality.

EU member states have agreed to pool research funds for defence but there remains significant national opposition to the idea across the bloc and there are no plans to create an EU army in the near future.

Mr Verhofstadt who leads the liberal group in the parliament, demanded “a new transnational project propelled by a real pan-European momentum”.

He launched a blistering attack on the “inaction” of the EU when faced with challenges such as the financial crisis, the slow pace of eurozone banking reform and increasingly authoritarian regimes in Hungary and Poland.

And he told Mr Macron that the EU could not continue to be driven by the traditional French-German axis and needed other countries to have more of a say in the bloc's policies.