EU to increase defense cooperation amid doubts on US role

Bloomberg

The European Union will for the first time bring its military operations under a single command in a symbolic move that signals the bloc’s renewed push to cooperate on defense matters.
EU governments are showing a readiness to pull together military resources and decision-making capabilities as statements from the US have called into question American commitment to European defense and with the UK, which spends more on defense than any other European NATO country, scheduled to leave the bloc in 2019. Defense ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday are due to agree to set up a centralized command structure for certain missions.
The plan is “a major step forward” but “it’s not the European army,”
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters in Brussels before the meeting, responding to accusations that the 28-nation bloc is gradually setting up its own military capabilities. The plan to be approved on Monday will enable a “more unified, more rational, more efficient approach to existing training missions.”
While there’s always been a degree of support within the EU for cooperation on military matters, it took on new life after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and with more frequent terrorist activity in the bloc’s core. There has been further impetus since Defense Secretary James Mattis said the US would “moderate its commitment” to the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance if members didn’t fulfill their pledges to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.
The step is more symbolic than transformational. Some of the bloc’s current missions, which have individual field commanders, will come under the auspices of a unified command center in Brussels.
Underscoring the sensitivities
surrounding defense-sharing in the EU, even this move has been controversial, with many governments
opposing the use of the term “headquarters” to describe the new arrangement.
The commander will oversee the EU’s military training missions in conflict zones such as Mali and the Central African Republic.
The UK, which will remain a member of the EU for at least another two years, is unlikely to impede the plan, despite traditionally opposing moves to significantly increase defense cooperation for fear that it would dilute NATO authority. Britain, which spent an estimated 42 billion pounds ($51 billion) on defense in 2016, may use its military might as leverage in negotiations over its exit from the bloc.