🇫🇷 🌍 🇪🇺 Macron announces that MansA, an African arts hub, will be established in a building close to the Eiffel Tower that, "used to have a Franco-German presence, it will now be an African and European presence."

📎 Disclosetv

🇪🇸 🇪🇺 🪖 Spain calls for EU army

José Manuel Albares, its foreign minister, suggested the bloc may not be able to count on the US-led military alliance to provide security guarantees.

Mr Albares said if the EU did not rely on Nato, Donald Trump could not hold its security to ransom.

The US president has threatened to impose extra trade tariffs on Spain over its refusal to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Mr Trump has also suggested he could withdraw American troops from bases there or even suspend the country from Nato over Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s refusal to support his war in Iran.

“We cannot be waking up every morning wondering what the US will do next… our citizens deserve better,” Mr Albares told the Politico news website.

“This is the moment of the sovereignty and independence of Europe. The Americans are inviting us to that,” he added.

“We have to be free of dependence. Free of dependence means to be free of coercion, whether it comes to tariffs or the use of military threat. And free of the consequences of someone else’s decisions.”

Brussels is gripped by numerous discussions about how to handle Mr Trump’s perceived lack of interest in Nato.

Many of those discussions have focused on what more the EU can do for security because 24 of its member states are also part of the military alliance.

Mr Albares believes the bloc should have its own version of Nato’s Article 5, the mutual defence clause which states an attack on one ally is an attack on them all.

The EU has its own mutual defence clause – Article 42.7 – which claims if one member state is the victim of an armed attack, the others have an obligation to support it.

But most insiders understand that Brussels doesn’t have the military capabilities to make the clause a meaningful deterrent to would-be attackers.

Both EU foreign and defence ministers are set to discuss military independence at separate meetings in Brussels this week.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/05/11/spain-calls-for-european-union-army

📎 The Telegraph