The Lisbon Decade (EU Militarisation)

The EU should prepare a white paper on military policy and thereby accelerate the establishment of a more powerful EU intervention force. This is demanded by the authors of a voluminous strategy paper on the EU's "Security and Defense Policy" (ESDP), published by the SPD-affiliated Friedrich Ebert Foundation in cooperation with other think tanks in Spain and France. According to this report, particularly the military buildup inside the EU must be better coordinated, to enable the equipment with the most modern weaponry in spite of financial limitations. The European arms industries must be more consolidated, which with the favorable conditions created by the Lisbon Treaty coming into effect, can now be initiated with the help of a white paper. The authors, two of whom are regular employees of the Friederich Ebert Foundation, consider that over the next few years, the EU must be closely coordinated with NATO - which it will "not be able to replace" before 2020. But the EU need not be ashamed of its armies, says the paper. Its member nations maintain a force of nearly 2 million soldiers, with financing of up to 200 billion Euros per year.


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