Twenty-two of the EU’s 28-member states are also members of the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation alliance, headquartered in Brussels, but Juncker insisted the bloc’s military ambitions would not undercut this key relationship.
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Van Rompuy denied that there are wishes within the European Union to “punish” Britain for choosing to leave, but characterized Brexit, the result of a referendum on June 23, as “political amputation”.
But he underlined he believed the world’s biggest trade bloc was still an important force. “And we are getting smaller”, Juncker said, adding that only standing together, however hard that is, can fix the problem.
“The European Union doesn’t have enough union”, Juncker told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Britain has always staunchly defended North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as the main military alliance and routinely blocked attempts to bolster European Union defense.
Mr van Rompuy said that while there was no desire to “punish” Britain for voting to leave, the United Kingdom had “not many friends” among the other 27 member states and the negotiation would be “difficult”.
The reaction from a Brexit campaigner said it was the European Union exhibiting its old ways of an increased attempt to grab power. The proposals, Juncker said, would not, have that effect: “More defence in Europe doesn’t mean less transatlantic solidarity”.
However, as the EU’s current, seven-year budget program ends in 2020, the total target will rise to 500 billion euros for five years and the Commission will call on member states to add to their contributions.
It cuts to the core of the power struggle within the European Union, as the 27 European Union leaders, minus Britain’s Theresa May, meet in Bratislava on Friday, looking for ways to move forward. “Of course, with the member states contributing, we can go even faster”, Juncker told members of parliament.
“We have to stop this war according to which all success is national and all failure is European”, Juncker said.
In other words, Britain has much to offer its European neighbours. “As for the initiative announced by Juncker, it is an attempt to reinforce federalist Europe, and nowadays people in Europe don’t want it, so it is not a welcome initiative”, he said. “They want results. The next 12 months are decisive if we want to realize our union”.
He also proposed to double the capacity and the duration of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), launched in 2015 with the aim of generating investments of at least 315 billion euros by 2018, of which 116 billion have been already raised.
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The EU leader stressed that the bloc’s actions should take place in concert with the USA -led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation defense alliance, to which 22 EU member states also belong.
