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| Title |
'Europe's stage armies' from The Guardian (17 October 1991)
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| Document type |
Press article
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| Source |
Europe's stage armies, in The Guardian. 17.10.1991, p. 22.
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| Keywords |
European army corps, European defence policy, Federal Republic of Germany, France
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| Copyright |
© GUARDIAN www.guardian.co.uk
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| Caption |
On 17 October 1991, the British left-wing daily newspaper The Guardian focuses on the Franco-German proposal to create a European Army Corps.
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| Location in the digital library |
HISTORICAL EVENTS >> 1987–1997 The European Union in a Europe in the throes of change >> The end of the Cold War and geopolitical change in Europe >> The reshaping of Europe >> The Eurocorps
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| Document extract |
Europe’s stage armies
The Franco-German proposal for a new Joint Army Corps is a symbol masking a set of serious questions. In the sandpit of European defence strategy, where it joins the Italo-British plan for a rapid reaction force, it is just one more cardboard cut-out on a battlefield with no visible enemies. But the actual targets are political, not military, and they are located not close to the Urals, or even in sands of the Middle East, but right here in Europe. D-Day is December 9, when they will storm the summit of Maastricht. The central issue is, of course, the defence component of European political unity and the decision-making which must lie behind it. This is necessarily linked with the future of Nato — because it is there — and with the US in Europe — because they are here, too. And it could raise questions (if we choose to ask them) about the survival of national armies with nationally-defined global interests — particularly those of the nuclear-armed Britain and France. All of this is profound and essential new territory to explore with all the imagination at our disposal. But, on the evidence of the two proposals on the table, the battle of Maastricht will be no more than a preliminary foray through these fundamental themes. On the face of it, the Franco-German proposal is designed to provide the embryo of a European army which will presup (...) Read more in ENA |
| See also |
Cartoon by Cummings on the French_German rapprochement (17 August 1959)
Signing of the Single European Act (Luxembourg, 17 February 1986)
Notes of reply from the three Western Powers (19 November 1970)
Eurocorps
Table comparing the votes cast during ratification of the ECSC Treaty
Carine Germond, France, Germany and Britain’s Second Application to the European Community (1966_1969)
Convention on relations between the Three Powers and the FRG (Bonn, 26 May 1952)
Cartoon by Opland on the Franco_German Treaty of Friendship (26 January 1963)
The ECSC levy (1 January 1953 to 31 January 1954)
Convention on the presence of foreign forces in the FRG (Paris, 23 October 1954)
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