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

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Europe has struggled to unite to meet the challenges of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the last four years.

The threat from Russia, and the growing tensions with the U.S. under President Donald Trump, have fueled suggestions that the answer to Europe’s divisions, redundancies and duplications in its defense efforts is a single European army. The idea is almost as old as post-Second World War European cooperation, but it’s been the subject of intense discussion in 2026.

At the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos, Andrius Kubilius, the European Union’s Commissioner for defense and space, told CNBC that the EU should consider establishing a standing military force of 100,000 troops, to be able to “fight as Europe.”

His words come after Spain’s 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.”