As the COVID-19 pandemic revealed failings in the EU bloc's mechanisms for jointly tackling crisis situations, member states are being increasingly urged to rally together, with European solidarity touted as “a lasting investment”.
The idea of a high-speed “hospital train” as a joint European military project is being touted by German defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, reports Euractiv.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the need to re-evaluate military threat perceptions across the continent, said the official at an online event on 8 July while mapping out the German EU Council Presidency security and defence priorities for the next six months.
The global coronavirus pandemic, according to the German defence minister, laid bare shortcomings in the European bloc's crisis response, underscoring the urgency of hammering out a plan to gear the EU to ward off similar pandemics or events potentially entailing large numbers of seriously injured.
A “hospital” bullet train” [Krankentransportzug] under the EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), which is part of the European Union's security and defence policy (CSDP), could be successfully used to carry out sweeping medical evacuation operations, suggested Kramp-Karrenbauer.
Germany and France are reportedly in talks on making such a project reality.
The two countries, who seem to have put aside their differences to jointly work on European response to the health crisis, with an initiative to create…
