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Britain Stresses European Force Does Not Undermine NATO
British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon insisted December 6 that Britain will only take part in the planned European rapid reaction force if it is satisfied that does not undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Reacting to comments from U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, who warned Tuesday in Brussels that NATO could become a "relic of the past" if the European Union force did not retain operational links with it, Hoon reassured that Britain would continue to keep on its commitment to NATO.
"We have made it quite clear that we will not sign up for anything that in any way jeopardizes NATO, our trans-Atlantic relationship," he told BBC radio on Wednesday.
"It is right that if we do not get the arrangements that we are negotiating for, then we would have the very greatest difficulty in signing up for this. But I'm confident that we will get those arrangements ... These things are agreed in principle, it is simply a question of getting the details right, and I'm confident that we will get those details right," Hoon said.
"It must be unified, it must be within the NATO structure, which has worked very well in both wartime and peace. We have made quite clear that London regards NATO as the central pillar of our defense and will continue to be so," the defense secretary stressed.
Britain has repeatedly insisted that Washington was perfectly happy with the idea of forming a European rapid reaction force to deal with the regional conflict in Europe.
But Cohen said the United States did want to see the EU states make a significant operational contribution to NATO.
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