Old Europe Unveils Plan For EU Army

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels
and Toby Harnden in Washington

"Old Europe" threw down the gauntlet at the feet of Britain, the United States and the Atlantic Alliance at a mini summit yesterday, unveiling plans for a new Euro-army with its own military headquarters.

France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg - described by some in the US as the "Axis of Weasel" - vowed to press ahead with the full-fledged defence union, brushing aside warnings that the move would entrench the European Union's bitter divisions over Iraq and could lead to the break up of Nato.

A new rapid reaction force would be built around the existing Franco-German brigade, taking in Belgian commandos and units from Luxembourg. It would answer to a Headquarters in the Brussels Suburb of Tervuren and be ready for operations next year.

Jacques Chirac, the French president, said the plans would bolster Nato's operational command. "The aim is not to decouple European Union and Atlantic Alliance defence efforts," he said.

But M Chirac gave out mixed signals when he gently rebuked Tony Blair for advocating a "one polar world" and warning of a new Cold War if Europe tried to become a rival power to America.

"Quite naturally a multi polar world is being created, whether one likes it or not. It's inevitable. For balance to exist there will have to be a strong Europe. Relations between the European Union and the United States will have to be a partnership between equals," said M Chirac.

He invited all 25 of the EU's current and future states to join the new defence force, but the so-called New Europe camp - led by Britain, Spain, Italy and Poland - has reacted with deep suspicion. Ana Palacio, the Spanish foreign minister, said the proposals were "counter productive" and would cause needless division at a delicate time.

Nato came close to buckling this year when France, Belgium and Germany refused to sanction delivery of Patriot missiles to Turkey, a fellow member. A Nato spokesman reacted cautiously to the new plans yesterday, saying he was "concerned about the risk of unnecessary duplication".

The four leaders called for the creation of a "European Command for strategic air transport" by 2004. The new force would have to rely on US airlift or leased Ukrainian planes until the Airbus A400M military transport aircraft was ready for service later in the decade.

Separately, The group has proposed a European weapons procurement agency and a "solidarity clause" binding EU states to face all forms of risk together as elements to be included in the new European constitution.

America yesterday dismissed the European initiative to create a multi-national force headquarters as irrelevant because of a lack of political will to spend more on defence.

Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, did not hide the Bush administration's dissatisfaction with European defence capabilities and its anger at the French-led blocking of Nato aid to Turkey and opposition to the United Nations authorising war with Iraq.

"The individual countries of Nato have not done a good enough job on this," he told members of the Senate foreign relations committee.
The Daily Telegraph. 30th April 2003

PHILLIP DAY'S COMMENT: Yet another example of European integration taking place at the expense of checks and balances that have kept peace in Europe for the past fifty years. Who is prepared to place any money on the chance that Brussels is really serious about having a duplicate defence force in Europe - the European Army and NATO? What idiocy. Is not the real plan to compel America to leave NATO, thus disbanding it, and thereby leaving Europe to bolster its own independent army - already unaccountable, secretive, and not constrained by the ability to prosecute its own criminal behaviour (art. 12 Chapter 5, PPI-EU)?

Haven't we been here twice before in the last 100 years? And didn't it all end in tears on both those occasions?

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