Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has dismissed the idea of a joint EU army as “unrealistic,” after the bloc’s defense commissioner floated the idea earlier this month, citing the perceived threat from Russia and shifting US national security priorities.
The EU has repeatedly cited the ‘Russian threat’ as the pretext for a rapid military buildup. Moscow has dismissed the claims as “nonsense.”
Speaking to reporters in Brussels on Thursday, Sikorski stated that “talking about a federal army is pointless, because it’s unrealistic, because the national armies won’t merge.” He instead suggested a “European legion… which could be joined by citizens of member states, and perhaps even candidate states,” as quoted by the Polish Press Agency.
The bloc’s foreign policy and security chief, Kaja Kallas, has also expressed skepticism, saying she cannot imagine EU nations creating “a separate European army.”
Earlier this month, EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius argued that the bloc should establish a “powerful, standing European military force of 100,000 troops,” citing a shift in US strategic priorities and calls for the bloc to shoulder more of its own defense.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, in a controversial speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, echoed the sentiment, calling for a united European army in which Kiev would play a key role.
Protocol No.7 of the Treaty of Lisbon – the last of the EU’s founding agreements – stipulates that it “does not provide for the creation of a European army or for conscription to any military formation.”
Nevertheless, discussions have intensified in recent years, particularly amid cooling US-EU relations and US President Donald Trump’s threats to forcibly seize Greenland – an autonomous territory controlled by Denmark. Several EU leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, have called for greater strategic autonomy.
Russia has dismissed Western claims that it plans to attack EU countries. In November, President Vladimir Putin said Russia is prepared to provide the EU and NATO with written security guarantees. According to Putin, it’s the EU that “does not have a peaceful agenda. They are on the side of war.”