EU rifts deepen over US missile shield plan
US ballistic missile testing in the Pacific Ocean: the German EU presidency is seeking to calm the debate (Photo: wikipedia)
MARK BEUNDERMAN
06.03.2007 @ 09:29 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - US plans to build an anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech republic have led to open divisions within the EU, with the Czech foreign minister strongly rejecting criticism from Austria and Luxembourg on the scheme.
The controversy over the US defence system - aimed at intercepting ballistic missiles fired from states such as Iran - hit the EU stage on Monday (5 March) as Austrian foreign minister Ursula Plassnik reportedly said "in the population of Austria, there is some concern" during a lunch with her EU counterparts in Brussels.
Just before the meeting, Luxembourg foreign minister Jean Asselborn had also expressed strong concern that Warsaw and Prague's interest in hosting the anti-missile bases could provoke new tensions with Russia.
"For me it is incomprehensible that after the end of the 20th century and the fall of the Berlin Wall anyone should start escalating again," he said, according to Reuters.
"We'll have no stability in Europe if we force Russia into a corner...We should help Poland and the Czech Republic to rally around a European position," he added.
But the Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg rebuffed concerns from Vienna and Luxembourg.
"I was very astonished to hear this from two voices - first, from Austria which does not take part in the defence of Europe, is not even a part of NATO, and Luxembourg, which is rather far away from us," he told EUobserver.
"It is rather strange that these two states raised concern about it. Actually everybody who is concerned about European defence, about security in the future, knows that we need all along a defence against rockets," he continued.
"The problem is of course that we in Europe have only started thinking about building it and the United States are far ahead. But of course the system we are building will be fully compatible with European defence [standards]."
"My Polish colleague [Anna Fotyga] explained the whole project [to Austria's foreign minister] that it's purely a defence project and how the whole thing developed. She informed her perfectly," the Czech minister indicated.
Meanwhile, Danish foreign minister Per Stig Moller expressed support for the planned US system, saying "a defence missile aimed at defending us from getting rockets on our heads is better than not having it and getting rockets on our heads."
But he added that it was necessary to keep Russia and China informed about the developments.
Warsaw and Prague have yet to formally sign up to Washington's defence scheme, which in Poland's case would include the placing of interceptor missiles.
But the Polish and Czech governments have publicly come out in favour of the project, sparking strong criticism from Russia which sees the move as designed to undermine the deterrence threat posed by its own nuclear missiles.
Russia bellicose
"We are ready to destroy elements of the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic," a bellicose Russian air force chief Igor Chvorov said according to Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. "All the strategic aircraft of the Russian airforce can carry out tasks linked with electronic jamming or physical destruction."
Russia's presidential security council on Monday said it is developing a new military strategy taking into account that "military force has become an increasingly important factor in the policy of leading nations" while "military alliances, particularly NATO, are being strengthened."
Meanwhile, the German EU presidency which has good ties with both Moscow and Washington, is seeking to calm the debate with Berlin's foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier saying "what we have to do now is to discuss this calmly within NATO and the EU and...to talk to the Russians," according to AP.
German defence minister Franz Josef Jung last week said the systems in Poland and the Czech republic should become part of a wider NATO scheme.
Martin Schulz, the leader of the socialist group in the European Parliament and member of the ruling German SPD party, called upon German chancellor Angela Merkel to put the topic on the agenda of an EU leaders meeting later this week (8-9 March).
"The topic has to be discussed at the European Council because it is a central theme for the EU," he told Spiegel Online.
"The chancellor should resist the planned defence system," he said expressing pacifist and Russia-friendly sentiments in the SPD party.
