By Nicola Smith - 10th December 2003
The highest ranking European officer at NATO’s military headquarters on Wednesday has backed a plan for the EU to have a permanent presence at the alliance’s Belgian command centre.
“If you wish for me to work for the European Union and NATO then I need experts in SHAPE,” said Admiral Rainer Feist, referring to NATO’s military planning headquarters in Mons, southern Belgium.
“If I am expected to work on behalf of the EU then I wish to have a permanent working staff at SHAPE,” he said, arguing that SHAPE’s current staff were not familiar with working with EU defence policies such as the rapid reaction force.
Feist added that a “handful” of officers representing the EU should be based full-time in Mons. “It is important that the right representation is there,” he said, adding that this could also include EU nations that were not NATO allies.
The German admiral acts as the commander of European missions that use NATO assets under the so-called “Berlin plus” arrangements agreed last year.
Feist headed up the EU’s first military operation in the Former Republic of Macedonia which began last March and is due to finish on Monday, paving the way for a new police mission.
His comments to reporters on Monday come at a time of heightened debate over the planning of EU missions that are independent of NATO.
The UK recently put the brakes on a Franco-German drive to create a separate military planning HQ in the Brussels suburb of Tervuren, by persuading the two countries to accept an EU cell based at NATO headquarters.
UK foreign minister Jack Straw said on Monday that the question of the planning cell was “coming towards a resolution.”
London’s move intended to calm fears in Washington that Europe’s growing defence ambitions would undermine the trans-Atlantic alliance.
The US is still wary that any EU plans for an independent planning centre have the potential to duplicate NATO facilities and Washington is holding fire on its response until the full details of the cell are known.
But in an earlier interview with EUpolitix.com, US Ambassador to the EU Rockwell Schnabel signalled that America may be sympathetic to London’s suggestion.
“We have always been very supportive of ESDP. We have always said that our support is tied to it not undermining Nato. What is being proposed at the moment which is a cell at SHAPE is something that we think might address some of the issues that we have had,” he said.
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