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Re:Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit by gamblor956 on Tuesday June 11, 2013 @09:45PM (#5865942)
Oh no! The EU! A political body which requires unanimity to make any decision! We tremble in fear...

In all seriousness though, the EU does not currently extend to defense; it is currently only a political and economic union. France and Germany have proposed extending the EU to include common defense, but as of today it had not yet been ratified by either the European Council or the member states. See, e.g., the Treaty of Lisbon. (Note that the Treaty of Lisbon technically removes the unanimity requirement in place of a "double majority" threshold (meaning >55% of vote from >65% of countries) beginning in 2014.)

Re:Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit by dsuth on Tuesday June 11, 2013 @10:45PM (#5866200)
And of course, war has no impact on politics and tightly interwoven economies...
Re:Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit by nraynaud on Wednesday June 12, 2013 @07:42AM (#5867557)
good news, because there has been military help treaties between neighboring countries a long time before EU was really standing up.

Fun factoid: France lets Switzerland use part of its territory to defend Geneva. And also let it fly its plane over FR territory because CH is so small that it's not practical for pilots training.