Political ranks split over the future role of WEU

Date: 13/11/1997

By Mark Turner

POLITICAL tensions over an independent European defence capability will simmer below the surface when Western European Union foreign and defence ministers meet in Erfurt next week.

In the wake of the cautious reforms agreed by EU leaders at the June Amsterdam summit, the Union's defence arm now needs to find a suitable resting place between its political and military masters in the EU and NATO.

But finding the right balance is proving difficult, with many European countries still profoundly split over the precise role the WEU should play and to what degree it should act independently from the US and other allies.

The ministers' nominal task at their two-day meeting, which begins on Monday (17 November), is to determine how non-NATO members of the EU (WEU observers) on the one hand, and non-EU members of NATO (WEU associated members) on the other, should be involved in Union calls for WEU peace-keeping missions.

The WEU has already largely agreed to allow observer states such as Ireland, Austria and Denmark to take part in its operational decisions, as long as they promise concrete assistance. But it is still unclear what role will be granted to associated members like Turkey.

Although the more pro-NATO camp is loathe to leave its allies in the cold while neutral states determine policy, European concerns about Turkey are proving a serious obstacle to its involvement.

Added to this are continued American pressure for the WEU to be subsumed into NATO, WEU calls for access to NATO funds and concern among European neutrals over NATO encroachment.

The Erfurt meeting is, however, unlikely to produce any fireworks. The arguments are too old to arouse vigorous passions and, in real terms, the whole exercise amounts to very little given the WEU's almost complete lack of concrete action in recent years.

Although the meeting will praise this year's WEU police-training projects in Albania, it is clear that Europe's military powers see the organisation as a very junior cousin to NATO.

Officials do not expect any progress either on calls for a WEU summit, or on a dispute over whether non-NATO EU applicants should be granted full membership of the treaty organisation when they join.

Erfurt will focus rather on more mundane issues, such as a formal agreement to synchronise the WEU presidency cycle with the EU from 1999.

Only when ministers come to join battle on the broader philosophical issues surrounding the nature of the WEU and calls for greater European self-reliance could the pyrotechnics become spectacular.