Defence forces of the European Union

This articles outlines the defence forces of the European Union (EU), which implement the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in CSDP missions. These include the armed forces of the member states as well as multinational forces with contributions from the same national forces. There are two categories of EU multinational forces: ones that have been established intergovernmentally and made available to the CSDP through article 42.3 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), such as the European Corps, and the ones that have been established at the EU level, such as the EU Battlegroups and the European Medical Corps.

The CSDP is implemented using civilian and military contributions from member states' armed forces, which also are obliged to collective self-defence based on the Treaty on European Union (TEU).

Six EU states host nuclear weapons: France and the United Kingdom each have their own nuclear programmes, while Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands host US nuclear weapons as part of NATO's nuclear sharing policy. Combined, the EU possesses 525 warheads, and hosts between 90 and 130 US warheads. The EU has the third largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, after the United States and Russia.

The following table presents the military expenditures of the members of the European Union in euros (€). The combined military expenditure of the member states amounts to just over €194,7 billion. This represents 1.42% of European Union GDP. European military expenditure includes spending on joint projects such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and joint procurement of equipment. The European Union's combined active military forces in 2014 totaled 1,423,097 personnel. According to the European Defence Agency, the European Union had an average of 31,570 land force personnel deployed around the world (or 2.2% of the total military personnel). In a major operation the EU could readily deploy up-to 417,180 land force personnel and sustain 79,352 of those during an enduring operation.

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