Meet your new European army

Summary: 

The divisions inside the European Union on defence are still bigger than the things it can agree on.

THE first skirmishing has been concluded without many casualties, but bigger battles lie ahead. That is a fair description of the first more-or-less serious discussion of military matters by the 15 members of the European Union, which are not used to dealing with life-and-death issues (apart from the rapidly re-emerging crisis over the safety of eating beef). This week's meeting showed up huge differences over the ultimate purpose of the Union's venture into the field of war; but a polite atmosphere was maintained by shelving some of the trickiest questions and concentrating on the here-and-now.

Marching into the Union's Brussels headquarters, the EU's defence ministers laid out the weapons which might, under certain circumstances, be used in a European-only military operation. There were further proposals from the six countries which belong to NATO but not to the EU, and from nine others which hope to join the EU. Inevitably, the arms laid out for inspection were as disparate as the European family itself.