The European Common Army - Between European Unity and National Sovereignty

This paper takes into discussion the proposal of establishing, into a progressive manner, of a Common European Army, an institution having a collective defense role, imposing the European interests and maintaining the European unity, in the context in which the member states of the EU want to maintain their distinct elements that belonged to the national sovereignty. Or, the army meaning is - beyond its role of "leading the struggle" - "national sovereignty". In order to sustain its international role - maybe, to increase it - EU needs a deeper integration of the member states and it must create institutions capable to design its interests internationally. The establishment both of Common Foreign and Security Policy and of the European External Action Service is an insufficient approach, as long as it has no real elements able to achieve its objectives. According to these general considerations, the paper aims to identify which could be the relation between the existence of a common European army and the sovereignty of member states, taking into account the socio-cultural context of partners within the EU and, especially, the new challenges that EU will have to face and to solve in the next period.