WHEN Emmanuel Macron, the French president, gave his first big policy speech on Europe at the Sorbonne last September, it was so packed with ideas that many have long since been forgotten. On June 25th, however, one of them—a “European intervention initiative” (EI2)—was signed into being by nine European Union countries at a meeting of defence ministers in Luxembourg. The idea is both to prepare a coalition of willing countries for joint European action in crises, and to tie post-Brexit Britain into the continent’s future military co-operation.
Mr Macron’s idea was born out of French impatience with the EU’s efforts at defence co-operation, known inelegantly as Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO). Fully 25 countries signed up last December to this arrangement, which commits members to developing joint defence capabilities. Germany has been keen on this mechanism, which keeps efforts at joint European defence within existing EU structures. Its critics, though, regard...Continue reading
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