The President of the European People’s Party, German MEP Manfred Weber, has spoken out in favour of further integrating European Union member states in military matters.
Weber used a guest spot on German political talk show Maybrit Illner yesterday to push for an EU army in light of the rise of right-wing parties throughout Europe.
“Europe must have the strength to learn its lesson. This also applies to military matters,” he said.
He described how the rise of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD) was causing many of his European colleagues unease: “I was in Greece in parliament, talking to MPs from my own party. And then I was asked the question: Mr Weber, you are not just an MEP, but a German MEP. What is going to happen if Germany is building up the biggest land army, and at the same time AfD stands at 25 to 30 per cent of the vote in the polls?
“Is this something to be concerned about?”
AfD, Germany’s main opposition party, is currently polling at 24 to 27 per cent in national surveys, neck and neck with Weber’s own Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Weber said these European worries motivated him to push for greater integration of the defence capabilities of EU member states.
“I am raising this because I hope that we now have the strength – just like [Helmut] Kohl and [Francois] Mitterrand did with the currency, the euro – to create a Europe that cannot be reversed, that will survive the storms of the world order together.
“We need the same thinking now on the military question. We must prepare for scenarios where [Jordan] Bardella becomes President of France and [Jarosław] Kaczyński returns to power in Poland,” Weber said.
“We must prepare for these scenarios now. And that means having the strength now to think big about Europe, to think historically.”
Weber’s remarks have sparked outrage on the German Right.
Julian Adrat, an author and AfD politician from Berlin, wrote on X yesterday: “Weber implies he wants to denationalise Germany and dissolve it in a European superstate. He does not trust his own countrymen anymore.”
Weber has pushed for an EU army before. In June 2025, he published an article on the idea on his website, comparing European integration to the emergence of the unified German state in the 19th century: “When the German Empire was founded, many Germans had a deep-rooted Saxon, Bavarian, or Württemberg identity – and then we all became Germans. Now we must become Europeans.”
Brussels Signal contacted Weber’s office with further questions but had not heard back at the time of writing.
