Four years into the Ukraine war, is Europe ready for its own army?

Over the past four years, Europe has struggled to unite to deal with the challenges of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The threat from Russia and rising tensions with the United States under President Donald Trump have fueled suggestions that a single European military is Europe’s answer to divisions, layoffs and duplication of defense efforts. The idea is almost as old as post-World War II European cooperation, but in 2026 it became the subject of intense debate.

European Union Commissioner for Defense and Space Andrius Kubilius told CNBC at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos that the EU should consider creating a standing military force of 100,000 troops to “fight like Europe.”

The remarks came after Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares told Reuters that the continent should “focus on properly integrating its defense industry”, arguing that “a joint effort would be more efficient than 27 separate national armies”.

But the EU’s Kaja Kallas warned that a Europe-wide army would be “extremely dangerous”, adding that its advocates “have not thought this through in practice”. “You can’t create a separate army if you’re already part of NATO,” he said.

One analysis The Center for Strategic and International Studies report, published in February last year, called on European leaders to reopen discussions and argued that higher spending should go hand in hand with reform and integration of European defense forces.

“This is a big challenge because European militaries are not designed to work with each other. They are designed to work with the United States,” Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who wrote the report, told CNBC.

He said Europe’s response to any war would be “very complex”. He added that countries’ militaries use different types of equipment and “spend a lot of money, but they don’t coordinate how to spend that money.” “There’s a lot of layoffs, duplication, and inefficiency out there.”

In recent years, the European Commission has pledged to increase the competitiveness and innovation of the European defense industry. To address some inefficiencies in the current system, the leaders also agreed to step up efforts to jointly procure munitions, air and missile defense, as well as legacy systems, for a total budget of 310 million euros. [$364.8 million].

Some European leaders have suggested that Europe should focus on strengthening its position within NATO rather than pursuing an independent armed force.

The region’s defense capacity should be “used at the national level and within NATO, not as an EU army,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb told CNBC at the WEF last month.

“We need to strengthen the European pillar of NATO,” he said, adding: “We do two things: we boost our defense industry… and on the second hand, we increase the capabilities of European states.”

Some recent research suggests that the mood has changed since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago.

EU Barometer survey It showed that support for a common EU defense and security policy has increased over the past decade. After Russia’s occupation and annexation of Crimea, it reached 76 percent in 2014 and 81 percent in the spring of 2025, the highest level since 2004.

When Europeans were asked for support or opposition to the creation of a regional army that includes forces from their own country, 61% of Lithuanian respondents supported the idea. YouGov Survey conducted in October last year. While 59 percent of those surveyed in Germany supported the proposal, this rate was 58 percent in Spain. More than half of respondents in Denmark (56%) and France (55%) also supported the proposal.

“From an election standpoint, this is definitely not a loser,” Bergmann told CNBC. “Some of the recent polls have shown that Europeans are very concerned about their own security. They think the potential for war is very real… they want some kind of radical change when it comes to defense.”

Some security experts are skeptical of the idea that a dominant European military can win the support of voters even in uncertain times.

Guntram Wolff, a senior Bruegel scholar who specializes in European rearmament as well as defense economics, said the idea of ​​a sovereign European army is “quite unlikely unless conditions change dramatically.” He argues that citizens across Europe would prefer their countries to engage in common defence.

“Citizens generally understood that this would be more effective and less costly. With the war against Ukraine and the fragmenting transatlantic relations, European citizens have become even more supportive of deeper European defense integration,” he told CNBC via email.

Liana Fix, senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, warned that greater European defense cooperation was popular across Europe but not without its challenges.

“On the military side, the most important questions to be resolved are decision-making and European command structures. So far, everyone is still relying on NATO structures,” he said.

Member countries at the NATO summit held in The Hague last year After pressure from Trump, he vowed to increase defense spending to meet the new target of 5 percent of GDP.