Latvian Minister of Defence Andris Sprūds doubts the need to form a united European Union (EU) army.
In an interview to LTV programme Rīta panorāma, he said Latvia’s position is that NATO is irreplaceable, NATO is an organisation that includes countries that are not in the EU.
According to him, there could be discussions about an EU army. The strategic compass indicates that there is a so-called intervention force that most EU countries could agree to use in some crisis situations. But generally NATO is the military force in the region, and its member states overlap to a large extent with EU member states.
“There is no need to duplicate and create additional command structures that would indirectly compete with NATO. There is no need for that. This means we have to work on strengthening the alliance,” said the minister.
The politician believes it is necessary to think about the development of military industry in the EU.
As previously reported, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani announced that the EU should compose a joint army that could be used for peacekeeping and conflict-prevention operations.
In his interview to Italian newspaper La Stampa, Tajani said a tighter cooperation between EU member states in defence affairs is one of the priorities of his conservative party Forza Italia.
“If we want to be peacekeepers in the world, we need a European army, and this is a fundamental prerequisite for an effective European foreign policy,” Tajani said in a Sunday-published interview.
“In a world with such powerful players as the United States, China, India, Russia; with conflicts from the Middle East to India and the Pacific, Italian, German, French or Slovenian citizens can only be protected by something that already exists: specifically the European Union,” said the Italian minister.
Closer cooperation between European countries in the defence sector is now the top priority since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Nevertheless, the main efforts are put into NATO’s expansion.
Tajani also said it is necessary to simplify EU’s management structure by introducing a single presidency, combining the current positions of President of the European Commission (EC) and President of the European Council.
Tajani became the leader of Forza Italia after the party’s founder – Silvio Berlusconi – passed away.
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