A man whose house is in danger of falling down surely does not decide to build a brand new extension to it. The EU currently has a ton of problems including the British departure, the Italians refusing to comply with Brussels’ financial strictures and the Poles and Hungarians openly defying the European Commission. Therefore the decision by French President Emmanuel Macron to revive at this time the idea of a single European army is strange. If EU member states cannot currently speak with one voice, how can anyone expect their generals to march to one tune?

It is even more surprising that German Chancellor Angela Merkel endorsed Macron’s plan for a “real European army” albeit adding it was an ambition that should happen “one day”. As ever, Merkel has her feet on the ground, even though since her announcement she will quit in three years’ time, that ground may be breaking up beneath her.

An effective army needs complete integration both at the levels of command and equipment and also of the political direction that European leaders will give it. Since EU countries are all currently members of NATO, to some degree that military integration already exists. Moreover, there has long been a notional military structure. Within a blizzard of acronyms so beloved by the Brussels bureaucracy, the original European Political Cooperation (EPC) agreement spawned the revival of the 1954 Western European Union (WEU) which led to the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) which in turn gave rise to the European Security and Defense Identity (EDSI) which morphed into the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). The CSDP is also referred to as the European Defense Union (EDU).

The irony is that the vast piles of paper after translating these agreements into all the EU languages would probably produce a better defensive barrier than any of the provisions written on them. The EDU claims to have 1.8 million personnel available, but these soldiers and the officials behind them by no means represent an army. The only way that a single military force could be created would be to establish a pan-European unit probably at brigade strength, with its own barracks, training, career path and esprit de corps.

If this proved possible, the next trick would be to hammer out how these soldiers could be directed in a coherent manner by Europe’s often bickering political leaders.

And then there is the question of funding. Only five out of NATO’s 28 member states now meet the commitment to spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense. Apart from the US, UK, Poland, Estonia and surprisingly Greece, all other members, including France and Germany, have consistently failed to honor this financial obligation.

Washington has long fumed that it has been picking up the biggest tab to defend a rich and complacent Europe. Unsurprisingly, it has taken the abrasive President Trump to spell out this imbalance. Nevertheless, when Macron raised the issue of an EU army, he added the United States to potential enemies Russia and China that it might one day have to fight. Macron actually spoke as Trump sat near him at the World War One armistice centenary celebrations.

Whatever the merits of a single European military force, it seems wrong for the French president to have unveiled his plan with a clear insult to an ally to whom Europe owes so much.