Increased coordination in spending as well as the ability to deploy highly specialized 'commands' like strategic airlift.
This may or may not be true, but not what Ulmita was getting at, what he was getting at would be reducing US influence over the EU.b. The EU is too divided for that to happen. Greece will reject the formation of the EU army if the Aegean is not defended and the western EU countries show little interest in defending the eastern European boundaries and waters.
Currently speaking, the US is the EU's army - As for a putative EU army, it would be orders of magnitude stronger than all of those - Turkey and Israel wouldn't even be comparable.c. Political leverage against whom? The United States, Russia, Turkey, Israel, etc already are economic and military powerhouses.
Depending on how it is constructed (and again, what has been suggested is not what is being discussed).Is Germany willing to shoulder the economic load (again) with France providing the backbone of the EU army? This isn't realistic if you think about it.
A possible scenario for a full army would be similar to the current EU budget, where 1-2% of BNI is directed towards a EU wide coffer (thus everyone paying equally, just like it is in the general budget) - And manpower would presumably be a volunteer base, open to anyone with a EU citizenship.
Most likely the EU defense contractors would be mostly western, and the soldiers mostly eastern (due to pay differences)
It would seem the west is coming around to the east's position.d. Western Europe will never see eye to eye with Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe is still tense because of conflicts with neighbors within Europe and external. This is why the Balkans are a powder keg. Western Europe in comparison are looking for a problem to a solution at this point.
The US wants to provide Billions of dollars propping up the EU - If it doesn't, the EU would be forced to get their own Army, and then the US would not have the world hegemony it does today.NATO isn't weakened with the formation of the EU. It means the United States doesn't have to provide millions of dollars to prop it up and can kick out members that do not contribute to NATO and admit those that are serious to their commitments.
A EU that spent 3% of its GDP on an efficient joint army, would be a peer with parity to the US - and worse, a Eurasian Hegemon.
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The article assumes that one of the reasons that Germany can borrow so cheaply is because Greece made investors scary and they went to Germany.
But the thing is this low cost of borrowing has been a thing for almost a decade now.