ZAGREB — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday poured cold water on a suggestion by Manfred Weber, leader of the center-right European People’s Party, that a joint European army could play a role in postwar peacekeeping in Ukraine.

Weber has made a number of striking proposals in recent weeks to project greater EU power on the international stage. In addition to soldiers operating under a “European flag” in Ukraine, he has called for one overall European leader — merging the jobs of European Council president and European Commission president.

Speaking at an informal EPP summit in Zagreb, Croatia, Merz welcomed Weber’s attempts to revamp the EU but said these ideas did not represent immediate solutions to Europe’s problems.

 “We must focus on the tasks at hand right now,” Merz replied, when asked about Weber’s initiatives.

The chancellor added he had no problem with “us repeatedly asking institutional questions” on making Europe more powerful and united, and stressed that “these are questions that need to be discussed again and again.”

However, Merz showed little appetite for getting bogged down in the sweeping European reforms that Weber’s proposals could require. “Achieving treaty changes in this European Union of 27 is a rather difficult task,’ the chancellor said. “I advocate that we first and foremost concentrate on the tasks that are now on the table.”

He said those were improving defense capabilities and the continent’s flagging industrial competitiveness.

While Merz was cool on Weber’s proposals about a European army, his government has still to decide on its commitment to German peacekeepers in Ukraine. While Berlin is not as forward as Britain and France in raising the possibility of providing peacekeepers, Merz has insisted: “We are not ruling anything out in principle.“

Germany also stresses it is already acting as a regional security guarantor on the Russian border, with nearly 5,000 troops posted to Lithuania, and through air policing missions across Eastern Europe.

When asked about Merz’s skepticism about his proposals, Weber said: “We are in dialogue. We are in discussion.”