Earlier in the day, German weekly Welt am Sonntag quoted Juncker as saying that a pan-European army could signal to Russia that the European Union was serious in its intention to "react credibly" to dangers facing the bloc and its neighbors.
The idea, according to Welt am Sonntag, has found support among German lawmakers. Norbert Rottgen, chairman of the Bundestag's foreign affairs committee, said time had come to unify 28 armies into the wider European armed forces.
"The Europeans spend enormous sums of money for the military combined, much more than Russia. But our military capabilities remain an insufficient security policy as long as we maintain small national armies," the newspaper quoted Rottgen as saying.
The West has been accusing Russia of military aggression toward Ukraine, claims repeatedly denied by Moscow as groundless. Russia, for its part, has on numerous occasions pointed to an unprecedented expansion of NATO toward its western border.
