The top NATO general who is now the President of the Czech Republic has warned Europe that peace “can no longer be treated as the default state of affairs”, but also warned against fantasists trying to build a European Union army to rival America.
Czechia President Petr Pavel, a former intelligence officer who rose to the rank of General and went on to chair NATO’s military committee, the most senior military post in the transatlantic alliance, before then entering politics, addressed the Globsec conference in Prague on Thursday. An annual meeting of political leaders and defence professionals, President Pavel made the now-familiar warning of a changing defence picture impacting Europe but sounded a much rarer note of caution, apparently intended for European leaders rushing to transform the European Union into a military alliance to defy U.S. President Donald Trump.
Even though international relations are being challenged, while the United States shifts its primary focus away from Europe and towards the Pacific, NATO and the transatlantic alliance with the United States remains the essential “foundation of our collective defence”, Pavel said. Europe must now take greater responsibility for its collective defence, but do so in a way that genuinely strengthens the continent.
The former general turned President said:
Europe must be prepared for this reality. This does not mean Europe should turn away from the United States, just the opposite… a stronger European role should not mean creating separate structures alongside NATO. On the contrary, European defence efforts need to be fully integrated into NATO’s [structures]… this is the real of a strong European pillar. Not an alternative to the alliance, but a Europe that is a stronger presence in the alliance.
…peace in Europe can no longer be treated as the default state of affairs. It must once again be actively protected, defended, and maintained. The lesson of this moment is not that Europe is alone, it is that Europe must be strong enough to stand on its own when needed… The coming years will decide whether Europe becomes a strategic actor, I am convinced that it can.
NATO and the European Union are and should be complimentary, not competitors, he said. President Pavel said that while NATO is the best route for collective defence and military issues, the political side with the European Union can turbocharge that alliance by setting to work on industrial strategy to enhance Europe’s defence production base, improve the continent’s resilience, and in modernising infrastructure like the arterial roads, railways, ports, and airports the armies of the continent would rely on in a crisis.
The “complimentary pillars” approach is in direct contradiction to decades of desire for a joint European army, a pet project of Brussels federalists, and newfound interest in the project among some European leaders looking for a way to defy President Trump. Spain is one of those nations which despite being a defence delinquent, long investing way below the NATO alliance’s bare minimums for military spending, now suddenly believes it is in a position to call for a new anti-Trump European military.
There were also such calls during President Trump’s first term, as a media narrative asserted that his calls on NATO to straighten itself out were an attack on the alliance. Despite NATO leaders making abundantly clear this tough love strategy did in fact work, leaders such as Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron called for a European army to put clear blue water between the continent and America.
President Macron was most explicit about this and said in 2018: “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America… We will not protect the Europeans unless we decide to have a true European army”.