Debate on EU army warms up

BRUSSELS — A largely philosophical debate over the wisdom of a separate EU army is rapidly coming to a head in this city, headquarters to the European Union and the trans-Atlantic alliance NATO.

Pushed primarily by France, the EU force is seen by supporters as a boost to Europe’s lagging defense capabilities and by skeptics as a direct challenge to Washington’s dominance in the security field.

Addressing the European Union’s aggressive drive to create the institutions behind the defense force by summer, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell employed some bland language to deliver a blunt message on a visit here last week.

“Our security is bound together in NATO, even as the European Union expands its capabilities,” Mr. Powell said after a working lunch with the foreign ministers of the European Union’s 25 current and prospective members.

“And we support all the initiatives that are under way to expand the capabilities of the European Union in the security field.”

A U.S. diplomat attached to the EU mission here said the unspoken message was: “We can live with where we are on this, but we’re not sure we like where it’s headed.”

The debate is shifting from paper to concrete — literally — in the Brussels suburb of Tervuren, where backers of the EU defense force hope to build a permanent headquarters and planning center for the new body, a multinational “rapid-reaction” army with 60,000 troops on call.

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns has attacked the center proposal as wasteful and redundant, given NATO’s own resources. Outgoing NATO Secretary-General George Robertson has said that Europe needs “more usable soldiers and fewer paper armies,” not its own military bureaucratic showcase.

But French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has argued that Europe is only doing what the Americans have long been demanding.

“Successive American administrations, and even [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld on a number of occasions have incited Europeans to build their own defense,” she said in an interview with Agence France-Presse last week.

“So it would be misplaced to come and reproach us for doing that which they have for years encouraged us to do,” she added.

Advocates also say the defense force could address the growing “capacity gap” with the better-funded U.S. military.

The European Union has engaged in military operations independent of NATO, overseeing missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as Macedonia, both using NATO assets.

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