US/EU: The United States Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, has expressed confidence that new EU defence arrangements will not undermine or duplicate NATO.
Mr Rumsfeld said a discussion of the EU plans by NATO defence ministers had reassured him that they did not represent a threat to the North Atlantic alliance.
"I am confident and hopeful that things will sort through in a way that we end up with an arrangement that is not duplicative or competitive," he said.
Mr Rumsfeld said the issue of whether the EU needed a military planning cell was being discussed by governments at the highest level. Earlier, he appeared to criticise the EU plan, which was agreed last week by Germany, Britain and France and is expected to be approved by all member-states next week.
"I certainly think that NATO has a fabulous record, over most of my adult lifetime, of contributing to defence and deterrence and a more peaceful world," Mr Rumsfeld said. "Therefore I would say anything that puts at risk that institution, you'd have to have a very good reason for wanting to do it. I think there's no reason for something else to be competitive with NATO."
Yesterday's conciliatory approach marked a stark shift from earlier US descriptions of plans for greater EU military independence as "the most serious threat to NATO". The EU plan would establish a small separate EU planning cell for non-NATO missions, while reaffirming the alliance as the main pillar of European security.
Germany's defence minister insisted the planning cell would not duplicate similar units at NATO and at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe. "The goal is to strengthen the European pillar of NATO, which is also in the interests of the United States. This is not at all in competition with NATO," he said.
Belgium's prime minister, Mr Guy Verhofstadt, described the agreement to establish a military planning cell as an important step. "The EU needs a capacity to plan and carry out autonomous operations and I am confident that in the near future, after the adoption of the constitution, it will be possible to create that," he said.
Luxembourg's defence minister, Mr Charles Goerens, said "a little more European emancipation is a good thing and in the interests of both sides".
Speaking at the College of Europe in Bruges, Germany's foreign minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, also defended the plan. "Only a weak, not a strong European pillar would pose a threat to NATO," he said. "All we want is complementarity, not competition."
NATO defence ministers discussed the EU plan briefly yesterday after a lengthy discussion on how to plug the gaps in their peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan.
NATO's secretary general, Lord Robertson, wants over a dozen helicopters and about 400 specialist troops to add to the existing NATO force of 5,700 operating in Kabul. Governments must commit troops to Afghanistan in greater numbers, he said, if the operation was to remain credible.
Despite the difficulties in Afghanistan, Lord Robertson suggested that NATO may begin talks next year on a wider alliance role in Iraq too, perhaps taking charge of the central zone currently managed by Polish troops.