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UK tries to head off plan for EU rival to NATO
Britain is today seeking to head off attempts by France and Germany to forge ahead with an independent European military initiative that it fears will weaken Nato. British officials will tell European Union colleagues in Rome that any planning for European military operations must be carried out strictly under the auspices of the Atlantic alliance.
"Because, you know, we’d like to see whatever we do actually WORK."
Paris and Brussels have called for the EU to plan and mount its own operations. They have backing from Belgium and Luxembourg - which form part of what pro-Nato critics call the "gang of four" of EU countries who opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq.
What military juggernauts we have here! France: Foreign Legion good, rest of French army okay. Brussels: no army. Lux: no army. Belgium: very substandard army. Just what they need: combine the four of these!
Britain’s proposals in response, submitted at the request of the Italian EU presidency, agree that the EU should be able to plan operations, but only from Nato’s headquarters near Mons, Belgium, still called Shape (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) as it was at the end of the second world war.
Where they still remember how to plan things!
British officials admit that the central idea of a document entitled Food for Thought is deliberately intended to undercut the Franco-German-Belgian idea for an independent EU "planning cell" in Tervuren, a suburb of Brussels. They warn that the Franco-German drive will annoy the Americans and create unnecessary duplication between the EU and Nato.

Britain and France jointly pioneered the idea of EU defence after the 1999 Kosovo war highlighted the yawning military gap between the US and Europe. Progress has been made in setting up new institutions and procedures and modest peacekeeping missions have been mounted in Macedonia and Congo. Plans are also under way to create a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force.
With no heavy air or sea lift to transport it anywhere, er, rapidly.
It had been hoped the EU could also take over the far larger Nato-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia next year, but that is now in doubt.
Oh, it was never in doubt here at Rantburg.
Amid tensions between Paris and London, British officials are frustrated that the Franco-German plan - initially seen as an empty gesture after the divisions of the Iraq crisis - is still being pursued.

Defence is one of the most controversial items in the EU’s draft constitution, which is due to be finalised in negotiations between all 15 member states starting in October.
Controversial only in principle, since there will be little money for it in practical terms.
Britain opposes proposals by the "gang of four" for a "solidarity clause" for victims of armed aggression, similar to Nato’s article 5 on mutual defence. Tony Blair has described this as one of Britain’s "red lines". He can count on the support of Nato loyalists such as the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Denmark as well as neutral or non-aligned states.

It is a sensitive issue in Britain, as the Conservatives argue that any sort of EU defence initiative will damage Nato. Geoffrey Van Orden, Tory defence spokesman in the European parliament, said: "None of this makes any military sense: it is pure politics and the loser will be the transatlantic alliance and Britain’s wider security interests.

"The French are likely to agree the trivial British proposal for a ’dedicated EU planning cell’ while giving up none of their own ambitions. We are then likely to face the worst of both worlds - an EU trojan horse inside Nato as well as expanding and duplicative EU structures outside."
That ’bout pegs it.
Posted by: Steve White 2003-08-29
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=18102