NATO: The US and European states clashed at NATO over ambitions by a pioneering few in the European Union to build an EU military structure independent of the Atlantic alliance, diplomats said yesterday.
The heated exchange at a meeting of NATO envoys on Wednesday came as Washington stepped up pressure on its closest European ally, British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair, to block the quartet of EU states pushing for closer co-operation on defence. One diplomat said US Ambassador Mr Nicholas Burns lambasted the initiative as the "most serious threat to the future of NATO".
"It got a bit scratchy because of some of the language used. The atmospherics were not great," another said. Diplomats said Washington was pressing for an open debate of EU defence plans, which it suspected could undermine NATO's role in European security. But France's ambassador argued forcefully during the meeting that the EU first needs to thrash out its common defence policy within negotiations on an EU constitution.
France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg - Europe's fiercest critics of the US-led invasion of Iraq - agreed at a summit in April to set up a military planning headquarters in the Brussels suburb of Tervuren for EU crisis management operations.
Mr Burns has criticised the proposal as both wasteful duplication of NATO's capabilities and a challenge to the US-dominated alliance's "pre-eminence".
Diplomats said alarm had mounted in Washington after a meeting between the leaders of France, Germany and Britain in Berlin three weeks ago at which Mr Blair appeared to partially soften his resistance to the quartet's drive."There is really massive pressure from the Americans," said one European diplomat. "They want to show the British and the EU's candidate countries there is a line we must not cross."
The UK believes the EU should use NATO's military headquarters for operations supported by the alliance and national headquarters in Britain, France and Germany for other separate and independent military operations.
London has also rejected plans set out in the draft EU constitution for a mutual defence clause, arguing that European collective security is served by NATO's founding Article V.
It has softened resistance to plans in the draft for closer co-operation between the most militarily capable members of the EU, but insists that this must not be an exclusive club.
In London, British Defence Secretary Mr Geoff Hoon said the EU and NATO had "differing, but mutually supportive" security roles.
But speaking in a parliamentary debate Hoon described NATO as the basis for collective defence and crisis management, and said it was "highly unlikely" Britain would engage in large-scale combat operations without the United States.
By contrast, French Prime Minister Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin told a conference in Paris that while the Transatlantic partnership remained a "fundamental element of the world's security", the EU needed to beef up its military planning capacity to bolster its credibility on the international stage.- (Reuters)