A military exercise called "European Advance 2019" took place in Austria at the end of November. 2,300 soldiers participated, 230 of them from Germany and Croatia. The purpose of the exercise is to prepare for missions of the EU Battlegroups in 2020. The EU Battlegroups are ready for action at any time far beyond the borders of the imperialistic EU alliance, in Africa and the Middle East. But the plans of the EU go far beyond that. In October 2019, Joseph Borell, EU foreign policy commissioner, said: "The EU must have more troops and prepare to deploy them around the globe. The EU must learn the language of power... We must strengthen our military capabilities."
Austria is a member of the Permanently Structured Cooperation of the EU (PESCO), which requires the respective states to spend a certain amount of money on armaments or to increase it annually. The Austrian bourgeoisie was forced to be neutral after World War II. But this was broken as soon as they were no longer under pressure of the Soviet Union. Today it is quite normal to participate in military alliances like PESCO. But not for many parts of the masses, which demonstrate again and again against troop exercises, armament or military transports of the EU and NATO through Austria!
