European army: the new great binge of bureaucracies, contracts and debts

The European Army and the New Iron Curtain The European Army, the milestone that according to some is indispensable in view of the construction of a federal state, was the stone guest of the last European Council, held on 21st and 22nd : it was a sort of War Council due to the prevalence of issues relating to the war in Ukraine, issues that must be read in light of the overall reorganization of international relations in this phase of post-globalization and return to history.
First of all, there is the redefinition of the borders of Europe understood as a sphere of the American-led West, with the construction of a new Iron Curtain that once again isolates Russia, thus amputating the geoeconomic ambitions successfully cultivated by Germany which over the thirty years between 1992 and 2022, it had gone far beyond the mandate given to it at the fall of the Berlin Wall, which consisted in gathering around itself the countries of the former Warsaw Pact which had first joined NATO and then the Union European, having created particularly intense and privileged relations with Russia and China, making Moscow the main energy supplier and Beijing the main industrial and commercial partner.
The European Union will thus extend further towards the East, including the Balkan area as a whole up to the Black Sea, with the prospective membership of Ukraine, Bosnia and Moldova, with a process already started some time ago in the first case, and announced with satisfaction by the aforementioned European Council in the other two.
The initiatives also taken in favor of Moldova and Georgia complete the political surrounding of Russia.
Towards the European Super State with a mini-NATO The ongoing war in Ukraine represents an unmissable opportunity in the ambitious attempt already underway for decades in Brussels to combine the process of defining the European common foreign and security policy (CFSP) with the prospect of a European Army: both objectives strongly pursued, because they would celebrate the definitive verticalisation of the power of the States in favor of the Union, which is using a pincer strategy for the aforementioned purposes.
On the one hand, in fact, while reaffirming that issues relating to defense and security are the responsibility of individual states, the headquarters of the Union is used to converge the positions of individual states towards shared objectives; on the other hand, the Commission uses budgetary tools to encourage and accelerate a common armaments policy, which is the prerequisite for the construction of the desired European Army which would ultimately be nothing more than a sort of Coordination Committee among the General Staff of the national armies.
A small-scale photocopy of NATO, finally independent from Anglo-American influence.
Lobby in celebration: armaments, rich dish! In the meantime, a very rich dish is being prepared for the defense sector industries, through a panoply of initiatives that wrap around each other.
In fact, in favor of Ukraine, the European Council welcomed: – the adoption of the decision relating to a specific assistance fund which is established within the framework of the European Peace Facility (EPF), increased by 5 billion euros to start preparing an 8th aid package; – the increase in the capacity of the EU Military Assistance Mission to Ukraine (EUMAM) which was added to the Civil Security Advisory Mission (EUAM).
On the general security and defense level, the European Council then confirmed the need to increase defense readiness and capabilities in the context of growing security threats and challenges, reducing strategic dependencies through strengthening its industrial and technological base .
Everything is expressed through an almost endless list of objectives and tools aimed at achieving them.
“In accordance with the competences of the Member States”, an indispensable term given the lack of attributions in favor of the Union and considering that the European Council which is composed of the Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the Union, the European Council has decided to : – respect the common commitment to substantially increase defense spending; – invest together better and faster; – improve the European defense industry's access to public and private financing, including through the European Investment Bank (EIB) which is invited to adapt its defense industry lending policy and its current definition of assets dual use; – incentivize joint development and procurement to address critical EU capability gaps, in particular strategic enablers, as well as to fully exploit synergies between national and European defense planning processes; – enhance cooperative/joint investments in the defense sector, from research and development to planning, industrialization and joint procurement, and improve predictability, for example through fixed multi-year contracts; – increase the resilience of the European defense industry, its flexibility and its capacity to develop and produce innovative defense products, enhancing their interoperability and interchangeability as well as ensuring their availability for Member States; – incentivize further integration of the European defense market across the Union by facilitating access to defense supply chains, in particular for SMEs and mid-caps, and reducing bureaucracy; – improve rapid response and early identification of bottlenecks in supply chains for the defense market and ensure that EU regulation does not constitute an obstacle to the development of the European defense industry; – support initiatives to continue investing in skilled labor to address the prevailing manpower and skills shortages in the defense industry.
Finally, the Council called on the Commission to rapidly advance the work on the joint communication on a European Defense Industry Strategy (EDIS) and the proposal for a European Defense Industry Program (EDIP) which will 'accompany.
No lobby was left out, considering that the implementation of the strategic compass remains a key element for increasing Europe's defense readiness and should be accelerated.
For these purposes, the following are of particular importance: the EU's rapid deployment capacity, military mobility, real exercises, strengthening space security, the fight against cyber and hybrid threats, the fight against manipulation of information and interference by part of foreign actors.
The necessary complementarity with NATO To avoid destroying relations with the USA, it is finally stated that a stronger and more capable European Union in the security and defense sector will contribute positively to global and transatlantic security and is complementary to NATO, which remains the foundation of collective defense for its members, always specifying that the specific character of the security and defense policy of certain member states is respected and that the interests of all states are taken into account.
Europe: the new balance of power The European picture is overturned: the brutal amputation of Germany's role, due to the disappearance of low-cost gas from Russia and the forced transition to electric traction in the automotive sector which was decided in Brussels in the context of the Green Deal, it counteracts the emergence of France's ambition which aims to guide the convergence of European states in defining a common strategy in supporting Ukraine on the one hand and to comprehensively counter Russia on the other .
In these terms, the less incisive role of the USA in supporting the burdens for the defense of Europe within NATO is compensated by France which would assert its status as the only European power equipped with nuclear weapons.
President Emmanuel Macron thus wants to give concreteness to the strategic concept of the "European dimension" of France's vital interests, while maintaining its "strategic ambiguity" unchanged.
In defining its behaviour, Russia must never be able to count on France's preordained definition of insurmountable red lines: it must not know in which cases and conditions Paris will react to an initiative hostile to its "European dimension" interests by activating its own nuclear deterrent capability.
Without Great Britain anymore within the Union, with the USA worrying about countering China while leaving Europe with the task of confining Russia, Germany will lose its role as the pivot of growth while France will try to take over from it plan for the coordination of military strategy.
The European Army will essentially be a new driver of spending, both at a national and European level, creating a new civil and military bureaucratic apparatus that would resemble that of NATO.
In Brussels we celebrate.