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EU set to back security doctrine

19/06/2003 12:18
European Union leaders are expected tomorrow to endorse their first-ever security doctrine, which could help rebuild the transatlantic relationship and establish European credibility on the world stage.

The 10-page paper, drawn up by experts under Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, will be presented tonight over dinner to foreign ministers at the summit near Thessaloniki, Greece.

The doctrine follows the disruption of EU-US relations caused by the US-led invasion of Iraq, which almost destroyed the EU's common foreign and security policy as member states adopted national positions on the war.

"It is not fashionable to say it but the Iraq war concentrated our minds," said a senior EU diplomat. "It showed that the EU has zero influence if its member states do not pull together. It showed too why we had to set out our strategic interests ahead of enlargement when the EU becomes 25 countries."

The European Security paper puts paid to the traditional view that the EU believes only in "soft" tools such as economic, diplomatic and economic pressure, or multilateral institutions devoid of military clout.

Instead, it focuses on what it calls an "effective multilateralism" empowered with military teeth. "If you want to make the multilateral system work you have to act when people break the rules," said an EU diplomat.

If Europeans are to deal with terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and failed states, they must have military capabilities, the document says.