By Nicola Smith - 4th December 2003
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday that Washington opposed EU defence plans that duplicate NATO tasks while welcoming any plans to boost Europe’s capabilities.
“The United States supports a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) that improves Europe’s capabilities to act and develops in a way that is fully coordinated, compatible and transparent with NATO,” he said at the outset of biannual talks between NATO foreign ministers.
But he warned his NATO counterparts that “the United States cannot accept independent EU structures that duplicate existing NATO capabilities.”
A move by some EU member states to create a separate military planning cell has been a source of trans-Atlantic tension for several months.
Welcoming the EU’s offer to take over NATO’s peacekeeping role in Bosnia, he stressed that “it could be a successful example of cooperation between NATO and the EU under Berlin plus.”
The Berlin plus arrangements – which allow the EU to use NATO capabilities – “should be the rule without exception for EU missions,” he argued.
Powell’s message was echoed by outgoing NATO chief George Robertson who said that there had been “general agreement that there needs to be maximum transparency and no unnecessary duplication.”
He declared confidence that the end result of ongoing talks to bolster EU defence “will avoid any unnecessary duplication and strengthen both NATO and the EU.”
But he warned that “any other outcome would be senseless for both organisations and the member states.”
Member states simply did not have the finances to double up with NATO, he argued.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini agreed that Rome did not have the budget to fund separate military capabilities.
When asked about an Anglo-French-German proposal to set up an autonomous planning cell in Brussels, he also stressed that he could not accept any moves that would duplicate NATO.
The plan, which surfaced at a Naples meeting last weekend would see a small operational planning cell in Brussels for EU missions conducted independently of the Alliance.
In an apparent concession to the UK, the majority of staff would be based at NATO’s military HQ, known as SHAPE, located in southern Belgium.
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