NATO to discuss EU defence plans
HONOR MAHONY
20.10.2003 @ 09:37 CET
NATO ambassadors will today hold an extraordinary meeting to discuss EU defence plans, following US criticism that the plans could be a threat to the Alliance.
Representatives will gather in Brussels to discuss exactly what the Union's plans for "structured co-operation" in defence will mean for NATO.
The meeting, called by the Americans, follows an informal agreement by the UK, France and Germany that they should be able to undertake some defence operations without always having to go via NATO.
Washington has been thrown by an apparent tactical change of position on the part of the UK.
Although the UK Prime Minister insisted at the end of last week that "European defence has no future as a competitor to NATO", it follows a significant meeting in Berlin last month where he dropped his opposition to a group within the EU pressing ahead with closer defence cooperation.
In September, France, Germany and the UK agreed on an internal document which said that the EU "should be endowed with a joint capacity to plan and conduct operations without recourse to NATO resources and capabilities. Our goal remains to achieve such a planning and implementation capacity either in consensus with the 25 [member states] but also in a circle of interested partners".
Also, although Berlin and Paris have publicly dropped plans for a separate military headquarters to be set up in Tervuren (a Brussels suburb), Mr Blair has not ruled out that a planning headquarters would be needed to be able to carry out missions.
It is this separate planning headquarters that NATO allies have latched on to as being the most visible and tangible threat to the Alliance.
Blair in the middle
This latest transatlantic scuffle puts Mr Blair firmly in the middle of the two opposing sides. During the Iraq war earlier this year, he was a staunch supporter of the US - often to the exclusion of his European allies.
Now, it is reported that he wants to make sure that the UK is among the first countries (France and Germany) to get defence issues going in his own back yard.
Several media report NATO diplomats as saying that they are confused by where exactly the UK stands of the whole issue.
Mr Blair himself acknowledged the difficulties last week by saying "there are people who want to pull me away from Europe and people who want to pull me away from America".
For their part, France and Belgium - another proponent of a separate EU defence capability - are insisting that there are no plans to rival NATO.
However, the US will need some convincing on this.
Last week, its ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, said that the EU's plans for military independence was "the most significant threat to NATO’s future".
