What many admonishers warned about before the vote on EU accession in June 1994 is now likely to become reality: the European Union, advertised as a “peace project” and economically extremely important for Austria, is becoming a military player.
As the German news channel n-tv currently reports, Brussels has decided to train 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers in the armies of EU countries. This is a repositioning of the economic alliance: the member states take over the rearmament of an army that is at war. And so far it is absolutely unclear whether the federal government of neutral Austria was questioned at all before the EU leadership made this decision.
This complete involvement of the EU in a conflict with Russia is becoming more and more problematic for Austria: The EU leadership has already arranged for massive arms deliveries to Kyiv as well as financial aid worth billions – also with Austrian net contributors, which is causing irritation in Moscow. After all, these EU transfers to the Ukrainian government pay both members of the army and mercenaries, who are recruited by the thousands worldwide.
EU financial aid totaling 5.5 billion euros has recently been approved for Kyiv, as the Ukrainian government confirmed last night.
How the 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers will be trained in the EU states has not yet been clarified. The only fix is that 3,000 of these members of the army are to be trained to become “special forces” with a particularly high combat value. The handling of this massive support of the Ukrainian army could be directed by the EU’s Political and Security Committee (PSC).
The Austrian federal government has not yet commented on the new plans of the EU leadership.
