Britain to oppose idea of 'EU army', says defence secretary

Britain is to oppose the idea an EU army, defence secretary Michael Fallon said as Germany and France aim to bolster the continent’s security plans.

At a meeting of EU defence ministers in Bratislava, the Slovak capital, France and Germany proposed to increase spending on military missions, develop resources such as helicopters and drones, increase peacekeeping efforts abroad and build stronger defences against cyberattacks.

"We are going to continue to oppose any idea of an EU army or EU army headquarters. We agree Europe needs to do more ... but simply duplicating or undermining NATO is the wrong way to do it", Fallon said to Reuters.

Britain, which is still able to vote in the EU as it has not left the union yet, said the proposed Franco-German defence plans should not impede or suck financial resources away from Nato, the European military alliance with North America.

France, which has a major European military, and Germany, which has several military assets, have to persuade sceptical members of the union to agree to the defence plans as Britain could garner support from Poland and several Baltic nations to vote against the proposals.

Fallon’s German and French counterparts, Ursula von der Leyen and Jean-Yves Le Drian said there were no plans for a European army to wear the same uniform.

Von der Leyen said Europe failed to co-ordinate in order to respond to the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

At his state of the union address on the 14 September, EU Commission President Jean Claude-Juncker said he wanted to create a 'youth wing' of the EU, a volunteer European solidarity corps, in part to deal with refugee crisis, which “should be in complement to Nato."

"By 2020, I want to see 100,000 Europeans taking part."

"More defence in Europe doesn't mean less transatlantic solidarity."