EU ponders need for new military force

Afghan crisis makes bloc accept need to develop its 'attributes of hard power'

Top European Union officials have backed up repeated calls from France's President Emmanuel Macron for the bloc to set up a "rapidly deployable" military force to intervene around the world.

The bloc has become overly dependent on the United States to defend its interests and the chaotic Western troop withdrawal and airlift from Afghanistan last month must be a catalyst to create a more autonomous defense strategy, said the EU's top diplomat and its military chief.

Europe needs to reduce dependence on the US to conduct such missions, said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

Following a meeting of defense ministers in Slovenia to discuss the withdrawal, Borell said the bloc needed the capability to react to conflicts worldwide and that the creation of a "first entry force "of 5,000 troops was the solution, Reuters news agency reported.

"Sometimes, there are events that catalyze history, that create a breakthrough, and I think that Afghanistan is one of these cases," he said.

Following a meeting with Netherlands' prime minister, Mark Rutte, in Paris this week, Macron repeated his view that the EU needs to develop "strategic autonomy" on economic and military fronts.

In 2007, the EU created a system of two battlegroups of 1,500 troops each that have never been used, due to disagreements on funding.

Borrell said the EU must find something "more operational "than the battlegroups, adding that he hoped for a plan in October or November.

"The need for more, stronger European defense is more evident that ever," he said.

General Claudio Graziano, chairman of the EU military committee, told reporters in Slovenia that the crisis in Afghanistan offered a chance to end years of inaction.

"The situation in Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Sahel show that now is the time to act, starting with the creation of a European rapid reaction force, able to show the will of the union to act as a global strategic partner," said Graziano. "When if not now?".

Speaking to the Financial Times, the EU commissioner in charge of defense industry issues, Thierry Breton, said the bloc has "learned the hard way" from the Afghanistan crisis about the need to build up its own defense capabilities and develop the "attributes of hard power".

He said that common defense was "no longer optional" and that the EU must become capable of operating military missions in "full autonomy" at its border and elsewhere.

Breton emphasized that the EU is not seeking to replace the NATO military alliance but to complement it in areas where it is less active.

Dependence on US troops for the evacuation from Kabul airport demonstrated the EU's lack of preparedness and independence, said European Council President Charles Michel at the meeting in Slovenia.

He said: "As a global economic and democratic power, can Europe be content with a situation where we are unable to ensure, unassisted, the evacuation of our citizens and those under threat because they have helped us?"