European divisions over Iraq widen
March 21, 2003 8:00 PM
By Paul Taylor
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union divisions over Iraq have widened with three anti-war states agreeing to hold a summit on defence integration without Britain, while London stands by charges that France wrecked diplomacy in the crisis.
As EU leaders wrapped up a second day of tense talks on Friday, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt announced plans for France, Germany and Belgium to meet next month to discuss integrating their armed forces more closely.
The move reopened EU rifts hours after the 15 leaders had papered over their splits with a statement pledging support for U.N. humanitarian relief efforts and urging Iraq's neighbours, in a warning to EU candidate Turkey, not to make mischief.
As U.S. missiles and bombs rocked Baghdad and U.S.-led ground forces pushed north from Kuwait, the European Commission earmarked emergency aid totalling 100 million euros to help tackle the humanitarian consequences of the war.
Britain, which has committed 45,000 troops to the U.S.-led Iraqi campaign, maintained its accusation that France, leader of the anti-war camp, scuppered diplomacy by threatening to veto any U.N. Security Council resolution on the conflict.
Asked whether he regretted attacks on Paris that drew an angry protest from his French counterpart, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: "I stand by the words I have used."
"I don't regret the fact that we have argued, that we disagree with the French position, because we do," he said.
"NO BED OF ROSES"
French President Jacques Chirac, struck a philosophical note, insisting that he did not see Britain as an adversary.
"Things are not black and white. Europe has never been a bed of roses," he told a news conference.
But Chirac also made clear France would veto any new U.N. resolutions backing the war at this stage and would oppose granting Washington and London administrative power in Iraq.
He also repeated France's belief that the United Nations alone could direct the reconstruction of Iraq.
But Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, an ally of Washington, criticised France's threatened use of its veto.
"I believe (the veto) is an obsolete mechanism that does not correspond any more to the post-(World War Two) situation that set up the organisation of the United Nations," he said.
The rift in the EU appeared to have one immediate consequence with the tripartite defence initiative apparently designed to isolate Britain, Europe's pre-eminent military power.
Although German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder insisted no country would be excluded from a common defence policy, Belgian officials said only three were invited to the initial summit.
Schroeder said the initiative would boost European defence industries and could one day lead to common EU armed forces.
Belgium's Verhofstadt said he hoped to meet Chirac and Schroeder in Brussels in April "to try to start putting our ideas into practice", adding that Luxembourg might also join in.
Britain's Europe Minister Denis Macshane derided the plan: "I wonder how serious is the idea of basing European defence on Belgium without Britain. European defence is a matter of two countries that have military capacities: France and Britain."
Germany and Belgium are among the lowest defence spenders in NATO as a proportion of gross domestic product.
BLAIR, CHIRAC KEEP DISTANCE
Prime Minister Tony Blair, looking tired and drawn after Britain suffered its first war casualties in a helicopter crash, shook hands and accepted condolences from Schroeder.
Chirac entered the room only after cameras had been ushered out, avoiding being photographed with Blair. But diplomats said the French leader handed Blair a personal note of condolences on "this cruel ordeal".
Blair denied any suggestion that divisions over the Iraq crisis had dimmed his enthusiasm for the EU.
"The answer to that is unhesitatingly no. I am not less enthusiastic. Where there are the disagreements, the right way to handle them is not turn our back on our other partners but to engage with them," he said.
In a statement, the EU leaders could not agree to say who was responsible for the war. France forced the removal of a phrase that Iraq had failed to take a final chance to disarm.
Diplomats said the leaders' message to Iraq's neighbours "to refrain from actions that could lead to further instability" was aimed primarily at EU candidate Turkey.
Ankara has refused to let U.S. troops invade Iraq from its soil but cleared the way for thousands of its own soldiers to move into northern Iraq, raising the risk of clashes with Kurds.
The leaders stressed their commitment to strengthening transatlantic ties, severely strained by the crisis.
Blair said relations with Washington had been exposed as a fault line in the past few weeks.
Reuters
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