Anglo-French military plan unveiled

French and British rapid reaction units will be at the core of greater EU military cooperation under plans to be unveiled this week.

Specialised troops on standby for rapid deployment will be trained for jungle, desert and mountain combat in proposals to be pushed by Paris and London, reports FT Europe.

The Anglo-French initiative is set to take the lead in an EU strategy to, eventually, create a 60,000-strong European force capable of major peace-keeping and stability operations across the world.

A paper, to be discussed by EU ambassadors on Wednesday, will set out timetables and specifications for detailing how, where and when units will be formed for missions.

The force will be open to other EU countries but only on the basis of “interoperability” with the “overriding” qualification “ultimately military effectiveness”.

London and Paris are trailing the plan as the first step toward greater European “structured defence cooperation” and will urge that proposals are adopted by EU leaders in June – making troops available by 2007.

Initial battle groups will consist of 1500 troops capable of deployment within 15 days for missions lasting up to 30 days. The force will, claim war planners, be “appropriate for, but not limited to, use in failed or failing states”.

The UK and France envisages the new force acting with – but not exclusively – the United Nations and maintaining a close relationship with NATO.

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