EU defence summit urged to stick to capabilities

Four anti-war European Union states preparing a controversial mini-summit on closer defence integration were urged yesterday to focus on improving military capabilities rather than creating new command structures.

The leaders of Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg meet for two hours in Brussels today to launch an initiative intended to galvanise European defence integration.

But what critics have dubbed the "praline summit" after the Belgian chocolate speciality, has been dogged in advance by accusations that it is divisive, anti-Nato or anti-American.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who opted in the end not to attend, told Reuters the gathering would be worthwhile if it gave fresh impetus to existing plans for European defence cooperation and spurred governments to spend more on equipment.

"If this meeting mobilises the countries themselves to get better expenditure on defence, and that mobilises others to do the same, that would be good news for the whole European Union.

"What I would like is for these things to become reality, not only in summits and documents, but reality. For me, the reality is the capabilities, which is the most important challenge," Solana said in an interview.

He also said it was inconceivable to build a common European defence effort without Britain, the bloc's leading military power, being at the core. Washington's closest ally in the Iraq war was demonstratively omitted from the guest list.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair played the snub down at a news conference and said a European defence capability was necessary. But he warned the summiteers: "We won't accept, and neither will the rest of Europe accept, anything that either undermines Nato or conflicts with the basic principles of European defence that we have set out."

The other three participants, keen to avoid antagonising London or Washington, have scaled down Belgium's initial ambitions, dropping proposals for specific targets for defence spending or new multinational combat units.

Diplomats said Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt was still pressing to establish a European military headquarters in Tervuren, outside Brussels, separate from the US-led Nato military alliance, but Berlin and Paris did not want this.

The United States and Britain have made clear they object to that proposal.

To spare Verhofstadt's blushes ahead of a tight Belgian general election on May 18, the leaders would probably refer the question for further study, the diplomats said.

What will remain are plans for an EU arms procurement and strategic research agency and a solidarity clause pledging mutual assistance in case of terrorist attack, already on the drawing board of a Convention drafting an EU constitution.

In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini warned the four not to try to go it alone. If they did, then "we - Italy, Spain and Britain - will perhaps have to organise a summit on defence".

The newspaper quoted German conservative opposition foreign policy spokesman Wolfgang Schaeuble as saying: "Instead of trying to heal the rift in Nato and within the European Union, this praline summit will only rub salt into the wounds."

French President Jacques Chirac's office sought to defuse such criticism, saying in a statement that strengthening European defence would also boost the Atlantic Alliance.

Asked whether the EU needed its own military headquarters, Solana said Britain and France already had national command structures that could be multinationalised to run a European operation if Nato was not involved.

"We must not take the wrong approach. The approach must be first to have the capabilities, then to have other things.

"You may have committees, you may have structures, you may have whatever you want. But if you don't have the capabilities, you don't have much," he said.

Verhofstadt described the summit in an interview with Belgian newspapers as an effort to relaunch the 15-nation EU's faltering common foreign and security policy by adding a coherent defence instrument.

He insisted the aim was to strengthen Nato by giving the United States a stronger European partner.

"There is no benefit to Nato in remaining a group with one superpower and 18 bigger and smaller dwarfs chasing behind it," the Belgian leader said.

With the exception of France, the summiteers are among the lowest spenders on defence in Europe as a proportion of gross domestic product. Belgium spends 1.3 percent of GDP, barely half the Nato average of 2.5 per cent. Germany spends 1.5 percent and is seeking to trim its defence budget further, and wealthy Luxembourg, the smallest EU state, manages just 0.8 per cent.