Andryushin S.V. Topical Issues of Establishing a Joint European Army

Abstract: The current research is dedicated to the problems of establishing a joint European army. Establishment of joint military forces has been many time proposed by various politicians since 1935, when Charles de Gaulle first suggested to consider this possibility. However, due to some historical events and the peculiarities of European integration, these suggestions were not supported by the majority of the members of the European Communities. In March 2015 the president of the European Commission - J.-C. Juncker - again stated the necessity to establish a joint European army, taking into account new security threats and lack of efficient tools of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.  The present study especially focuses on the reasons of the necessity to establish a European army, the main challenges it can face, as well as the achievements of the European Union in the field of establishment of Rapid Response Forces and common defence market. Methodologically and theoretically the study is based on the comprehensive analysis and system approach towards the examination of primary sources and various scientific works of European security experts. The scientific novelty of the research lies in studying the primary reasons for establishment of joint European army and their correlation with the processes that have been taking place in the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy for the past ten years. The main conclusions of the research are as follows: 1) despite numerous initiatives to form joint European armed forces that were proposed during different periods of European integration, this project has not been implemented due to certain reasons, the most important of which are unconditional delegation of the issues of collective security to NATO and different perception of threats by different member-states; 2) the formed European Battlegroups as a tool of European Rapid Response Forces are supposed to perform tasks within the framework of the 'soft power' concept, however, they were never used because of the problems with compatibility, standardisation, transport and financing; 3) the establishment of a European army is not in the EU agenda yet, even in the long-term. It is determined by many problems on this way, which are to be solved by the European Defence Agency, and the orientation of the EU on the 'soft power' concept.

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