"I am in favor of President Macron's proposal for an intervention initiative," the German chancellor told Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper on Sunday.

The topic has been under discussion since September, when French President Emmanuel Macron laid out his vision for a pan-European "military intervention force" with a shared military budget funded by aggregated tax receipts and supervised by a single finance minister. Macron's vision – which is central to his integrationist message – was similar to a proposal laid out during a speech last summer by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who declared at the time that "soft power alone is not powerful enough."