EU ponders compromise to end defence headquarters standoff

A compromise may be in sight in a battle between European countries over proposals for a European Union military headquarters independent of Nato that have angered the United States, diplomats said yesterday.

Belgium said it would not back down from a proposal - agreed at a widely criticised summit with France, Germany and Luxembourg on April 29 - to set up an EU planning and command staff for operations in which Nato is not involved.

But, opening the door to a compromise with those EU countries supporting stronger links between Europe and America, Foreign Minister Louis Michel welcomed a British counter-proposal for an EU planning cell within the US-dominated alliance.

"One does not exclude the other," he told Reuters. "We are not against the British proposal, it's already a step in the right direction because there will be a European cell within Nato. But that's not enough."

The April 29 summiteers, branded "old Europe" by the US defence secretary for their outspoken criticism of the US-led war in Iraq, also sought an EU solidarity clause for state victims of armed aggression.

They insisted their plans were not anti-Nato, anti-American or divisive, but aimed at strengthening the European pillar of the Atlantic alliance.

But the United States and its closest European ally, Britain, view the proposals as contradictory to the spirit of "Berlin Plus", a landmark pact for cooperation and consultation between the EU and Nato which was clinched last December.