The EU's new defence budget might achieve little and loose talk of a joint army could do harm, a European watchdog has warned.
The EU recently agreed to spend €13bn in the coming seven years on joint procurement and R&D.
That, together with other new projects, represents a 22-fold increase on defence spending in the previous budget.
The changes are being described as a big bang on the way to European "strategic autonomy" by EU officials.
They are also being called ...
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.