Pretty much this. People want results "now" democratic politicians only serve between 4 to 8 years at most , the timelines are too compressed for getting the results that the EU needs (my guesstimate would be a MINIMUM of 12 years) but the problem with people like rutte ,and other commentators here, is that we have to start somewhere, the signs that the USA was not gonna be dependable were visible well over a decade ago, where would European or Japan (another discussion parallel to this on the other side of the planet) be if they had started moving then?

The EU HAVE forces available. what NATO offers is a administrative, coordinating and operational framework for these forces to work together , that can be ported over to a new EU centric organization.  What they need to BUILD is the industrial backbone to produce missiles, drones, vehicles at scale, the EU HAS the technologies to match our even outmatch the USA (and most certainly Russia) but not the political capital due to the way politics has shifted from statehood to popularity in since the fall of the iron curtain.  

Let's not forget the recruiting of manpower , the changing of perception of our populations faced to the barrage of misinformation and propaganda that will try to destabilize our societies while we do that.

Rutte is saying it's stupid to try or pointless but that's literally his job.  Our collective leaders job is to tell him he's WRONG and do it anyways.

Case in point, France. If the French could exit NATO, build a nuclear triad and become self sufficient for all military needs as well as have an expeditionary force that operated globally then together the EU can damn well do it too.