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And Third - if England doesn't particpate - most likely other nations will also not particapate and that will lessen the crediblity of such a unified force.
I'm sure you mean Britain.
No, England is right. I guess the Scots, Irish and Welsh will join

This is why we need an European army:

1. This will boost the integration. A common army will force the EU to a common policy
2. It will keep the balance. To secure peace you have to integrate Germany as much as possible. Today everything is fine. But only if we get our European identity the balance in Europe will be there for a long time. I know that some nations think they will loose influence in a European State. Completely wrong. If you have a European democracy every single individual has the same influence. If you have not, the big nations rule.
3. The US only respects military strengh. So if we want to get influence on the international politic we must increase our military strenght. We must have our own CIA, our own spy satelites, our own GPS.
4. If we want to reform the UN to a real powerful organisation we can only do this from a position of strength, military strenght, not only moral.

To the standards: Most European nations are member of the NATO and so have common standards. I know that Poland spend a lot of money to introduce them. There is already a command structure. There is no need that every unit uses the same trucks. France has to be integrated. There is even a kind of European army, the Western European Union.

GB:
I guess the strength of the British army is overestimated. They reduced their military spendings as much as any other European nation after the cold war. I do not believe that the British will join the army. I think it is more likely that they quit Europe (maybe try to become 51st state of the US). That is o.k.. It is their decition. Europe will be stronger without them being half in half out. I think the other big ones will join: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, also some of the smaller ones. Maybe the northern and eastern states will join too.