The vote was not supported by everyone in the Strasbourg Parliament after it narrowly passed by 369 votes to 255, with 70 abstentions.

And astonishingly it has been agreed that the EU should also be prepared to act autonomously in cases where NATO is not willing to take the lead.

However the EU is celebrating this victory claiming the security situation in and around Europe has worsened significantly in recent years, due to challenges like terrorism, hybrid threats or cyber and energy insecurity.

It says no country is able to tackle defence alone and "solidarity and resilience require the EU to stand and act together".

European politicians have now guaranteed at least £420m-a-year in funding to set up their new European wide army which will be a "rapid response" team.

They suggest devoting an initial two per cent of the overall GDP to defence, establishing multinational forces and EU headquarters to plan and command crisis management operations, and enabling the EU to act where NATO is unwilling to do so.