France tells Europe to pull its weight on defence

French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged European Union nations on Monday to accept a greater share of defence spending to cope with escalating global threats.

He said the United States had nothing to fear from European efforts to promote its own defence and called for a rationalisation of existing arms programmes in Europe's fragmented 200 billion euro (136 billion pound) defence industry.

"We can't carry on with four countries paying for the security of all the rest," Sarkozy told France's overseas ambassadors in a foreign policy speech.

France's defence procurement budget is the second biggest in Europe behind the UK. Together with Germany and Italy, Europe's four largest economies accounted for 75 percent of European defence spending in 2005, according to the European Defence Agency (EDA).

Unlike Germany and Italy, however, Britain and France spend more than 2 percent of gross domestic product on defence, which is a NATO benchmark, according to EDA figures.

"In the face of multiplying crises, there is not a surplus but a shortage of (defence) capacity (in Europe)," Sarkozy said.

"I would like Europeans to assume their full role and responsibilities for their own security and for the security of the world. That means we need to boost our planning and operational capacity and develop a European arms industry with new programmes and by rationalising existing ones."

In France's recent election campaign, Sarkozy pledged to keep French defence spending at 2 percent of gross domestic product and to press ahead with costly plans for a new aircraft carrier.

Defence analysts blame a proliferation of overlapping projects in Europe on the refusal of Europrean governments to share out sensitive projects that guarantee thousands of jobs.

Sarkozy sought to reassure the United States over EU efforts to boost the region's defence capabilities, saying these should be seen as complementing rather than rivalling the 58-year-old North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

"Putting the EU in opposition to NATO doesn't make any sense because we need both. Better still, I am convinced it is in the well-understood interests of the United States that the EU should gather its forces, rationalise its capabilities and organise its own defence in an independent way."

Sarkozy said France would push for a European security strategy to be adopted during its EU presidency next year.

Source: Reuters

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