The US withdrawal from Afghanistan will “catalyse” the EU to establish its own permanent military force, the union’s foreign policy chief has said, despite years of fruitless debate and opposition from member states.
After a meeting of EU defence ministers, Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said the moment had come to establish an active EU expeditionary force, described by some senior European politicians as an army.
Repeated attempts have been made to encourage military cooperation between member states, often attacked as an example of nation-building by critics. But Borrell said the “deficiencies” in the bloc’s autonomy from the US had been exposed in recent months. » | Daniel Boffey in Brussels | Thursday, September 2, 2021
