German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer intends to propose a plan for creating a rapid reaction force for Europe by the end of October. She said this in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper on September 17.
"This does not mean that we should separate from the Americans. There may be situations when we have other interests, including within NATO. Then we must be able to act on our own, " she explained.
The head of the Defense Ministry also admitted that the events of recent months in Afghanistan made her think about resigning, but instead she decided that it was necessary to continue fighting to exclude similar situations in the future.
On September 2, the Supreme Chairman of the European Union for Foreign Policy and Security, Josep Borrel, announced that the final draft on defense and security of the "Strategic Compass of the EU" will be ready by October-November. It was pointed out that the document will be close to the EU doctrine and the NATO strategic concept in its design.
In turn, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, believes that the European rapid reaction forces can create competition with NATO, and urged the EU not to do this.
As political scientist Vladimir Evseev noted in an interview with Izvestia, the idea of creating a common armed forces of the European Union is dictated by the desire of the EU countries to be more independent from the United States, but it is extremely difficult to imagine a European army.