Sarkozy Moves To Strengthen European Military Union

By Cernig

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed a raft of measures to boost European military union - provoking a kneejerk antipathy from the British, who after all have been trying to prevent that very thing for centuries.

The proposals, circulated to European governments in a five-page document detailing Paris's security policy priorities, include common EU funding of military operations, a European fleet of military transport aircraft, European military satellites, a European defence college, and the development of exchange programmes for officers among EU states.

Since 2004, the British have resisted the headquarters idea, seeing it as a French ploy to undermine the Nato alliance and boost common European defence by establishing a European rival to Nato's Shape planning headquarters at Mons in Belgium. The prime minister's spokesman said yesterday the British government is committed to Nato remaining the cornerstone of European defence, but also supports permanent structured cooperation on defence within the EU so long as it does not duplicate the work of Nato, or remove the UK veto.

The two governments are already negotiating quietly over President Nicolas Sarkozy's defence proposals, sources said, adding that Washington is privately pressing the Brown government to reach a deal with the French.

In a speech to Greece's parliament, Sarkozy said the EU must be able to defend itself, but he said: "It is not a case, nor will it ever be a case of competing with Nato. We need both. A Nato and European defence that oppose each other makes no sense."

Details of the French proposals, obtained by the Guardian, confirm that Sarkozy is determined to use his six-month EU presidency, starting in three weeks, to drive forward his military agenda for Europe. The French have sought to keep their proposals private for the moment so as not to derail ratification of the EU treaty. Ireland is holding its referendum on the Lisbon treaty next week and British peers are due to vote on whether to demand a similar referendum next Wednesday.

The British government insisted the document was a set of preliminary proposals for discussion with the British and Germans, and did not represent French government policy.

Most sensitively, Paris is insisting on the new Brussels headquarters coming under the authority of Europe's foreign policy supremo, a post whose powers are considerably boosted under the EU's reform treaty and which is currently held by Javier Solana of Spain. Ultimately, the Brussels headquarters would plan and control EU missions abroad.

The French are making it very clear that these proposals are French national policy, however, and the Bush administration seem willing to go along with them as a quid-pro-quo for hastening French reintegration into NATO, which needs French co-operation desperately in Afghanistan.

"France wants to create an efficient and strong European security and defence policy. The main goal for the French [EU] presidency is to strengthen EU military capabilities," said Admiral Anne-Fran�s de Saint Salvy, a senior French defence ministry official. "The EU has to really increase operational capabilities and Nato has to decrease its command structures." Increased French cooperation in Afghanistan has been taken as a sign of a new willingness to compromise by the French.

Eurosceptics and some Atlanticists see such statements as further evidence of traditional French anti-American policy. "I don't see anything in this that will benefit the United Kingdom," said Geoffrey Van Orden, a Conservative MEP and former brigadier. "This will end in tears."

But the French maintain the policy is aimed at reinvigorating the transatlantic alliance and basing Nato and European security policy on "complementarity" rather than rivalry and duplication.

British officials said there was nothing unexpected in Paris's proposals and played down their significance. Experts disagreed. "It's very ambitious," said Tomas Valasek, security analyst at the Centre for European Reform thinktank. "The French want everything."

I can see pros and cons in this French move for both the US and Europe...and mostly cons for Britain. The US gets a short-term boost for NATO which however sets the groundwork in the longer term for a Euro rival both to NATO and eventually (presumably) to the existing major military powers. The French get to steer this European military from the guiding seat, making them the unquestioned mover and shaker of European defense and security policy - but risk excluding the UK (and the UK's money) from a future Europe. This, more than a common currency or a common constitution, may well be where Blighty makes a stand and says 'enough". There will be enormous public antipathy from the British public to any notion that the UK could place it's military under French control, "of all people", for multiple reasons of history and stereotyping. But should this thing come to pass, then snowball into a European military union in truth, and Britain walk away, it will be sidelined in Europe as a whole and sidelined militarily by being sandwiched between the far larger military powers of a European union and the U.S. Accusations that Britain is simply America's largest aircraft carrier would be impossible to deflect, then, which would also negatively impact Britain's alliance with America.