BERLIN, March 23 (UPI) -- The European Union should have a common army, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel told a German newspaper.
Two days before the 27-member body celebrates its 50th birthday, Merkel said in an interview with the mass-selling German daily Bild published Friday that Europe should think about joining its military power.
"We need to get closer to a common army for Europe," she said.
Speaking about her future visions for the EU, Merkel also underlined her dream of a common EU constitution, which she will try to revive Sunday in a 'Berlin Declaration,' a two-page document that will set the constitutional agenda for the EU until 2009.
Merkel's Germany currently holds the rotating six-month presidency of the EU, and the German chancellor has made reviving the constitution one of the key points of her presidency.
Despite all plans to come closer together, Merkel in the interview rejected the idea that Europe would merge into a single state. "There will not be a European federal state, we will maintain the diversity of the nation states," she said.
