A European army is exactly what the EU and UK needs

Whether or not Donald Trump wins the US presidency, American sentiment is for the Europeans to do much more to help themselves

Under Nato Euope's defences remain incomplete and necessitate US involvement (AP)

Germany has been among the most vocal opponents of Brexit. So it was perhaps surprising that it was from here that a mini-missile was launched into the referendum campaign, with leaked details of a defence White Paper pushing the creation of a European Army.

For the UK’s flailing Brexiteers, this was just what was needed. Veterans for Britain duly popped up to warn of the threats to UK sovereignty and to Nato, the alliance that had kept the country safe through the Cold War and beyond.

From Remain advocates came a flurry of disclaimers. The very notion of an EU army was, they said, a figment of an outdated federalist imagination. Not only was it not going to happen - because EU treaties stipulate unanimity for such a project – but, in the improbable event that it ever did, the UK would show the same disdain as it had shown towards the Schengen treaty on borders.

All this was supposed to put minds at rest – to scotch talk of young Britons being called up by Brussels, UK troops saluting a French or Croatian commander, and “our lads” fighting under the blue and gold flag. A more reasoned response, however, would be: more’s the pity.

For while this reminder of Germany’s support for an EU army might seem an unhelpful intrusion into the EU referendum for Remainers with an inflated idea of the UK’s exceptionalism, that should not discredit the idea itself. A single EU military force offers a better answer than the status quo to the host of security problems that beset the UK, the European Union and the region as a whole.

In the recent past, EU countries, and especially the UK, have become embroiled in conflicts they had no need to enter. There was no good rationale, other than solidarity with the United States as big chief ally, for why British forces joined the intervention in Afghanistan, and even less reason to join the US invasion of Iraq. France took quite a different view, but the UK was seduced by its fealty to the US and the supposed superiority of its shared intelligence. These two disasters alone should militate in favour of giving precedence to European, rather than transatlantic, security interests from now on.

Recent attempts at independent action were not always more successful. UK action in Sierra Leone and French-led operations in Mali were modest in scale and produced passable results. But when these same two EU countries took it upon themselves to protect the Libyans of Benghazi, and misguidedly extended the mission to remove Gaddafi, they had to call on a reluctant US for help. They were not short of money so much as capability, which is another defect of the transatlantic alliance.

The whole concept of Nato dictates that Europe’s defences should be incomplete, because part of the point is to keep the US involved in Europe. Is it not time for the EU, with 28 members, to be able to mount protection and peace-keeping missions in and around its own region? It has made tentative efforts under the Common Security and Defence Policy, yet it is only now, and still with some hesitation, that a joint border force is coming into being.

A common border, as per Schengen, requires common patrols and enforcement, as the refugee crisis has shown many times over. The EU has nobly aspired to be a different, perhaps kinder, sort of power. But kinder cannot mean chaotic or lacking in credibility.

Reluctance to raise defence spending, as the US often complains, is a part, but only a part, of the story. At least some of what EU members do spend is squandered because of duplication or incompatibility, plus an element of national pride. But other spending may not always reflect European needs.

EU expansion has been met at times with ambivalence in Washington. While it wants European Nato members to pull their weight, it has until very recently resisted EU moves towards military and defence autonomy - and the UK, seduced by the “special relationship” has been its willing helper here.

A case can be made that, with a few tweaks and some US encouragement, Nato’s European members could soon become an effective EU armed force – in fact, if not in name. Arrangements similar to those that facilitate the European Economic Area could allow Norway, (in Nato but outside the EU), to contribute, while Sweden and Finland (in the EU, but outside Nato) might find an EU alliance preferable to one that crosses the Atlantic.

An additional bonus from an EU security alliance shorn of its dominant transatlantic wing might be better relations with Russia; the fear factor would be reduced and the pressure to cooperate greater. Such a change would be opposed by the East and Central Europeans, who would have to trust the defence capability of the EU more than they do now. But as the UK, France and Germany foot most of the security bill, their arguments should in the end prevail.

The day when the Europeans have to defend themselves might anyway come sooner than the EU and its present leaders imagine. Whether or not Donald Trump wins the US presidency, American sentiment is for the Europeans to do much more to help themselves. With that, and the US “pivot” to Asia, the transformation of Nato’s European arm into an EU defence structure would be a logical solution.

The clout and credibility of such a force would be greatly enhanced by a solid UK vote to remain. There is already a separate defence agreement between the UK and France. The British could reasonably claim co-leadership of EU defences, participating fully in decisions about how to use European power in ways that are compatible at once with its capability and its ideals.

Such a role for the UK could also help to compensate for its non-membership of Schengen or the single currency, and the absence of its voice on these central issues. Then again, were the vote on 23 June to be a landslide for Remain, a future UK government might be persuaded to re-open those two dusty files. It may seem a vain hope today, but tomorrow - who knows?