Quote: President George W. Bush on Wednesday signalled a softening of long-standing US resistance to stronger European Union defence capabilities, suggesting for the first time this could help rather than weaken Nato.
The signal came in a speech ahead of Wednesday’s Nato summit in Bucharest, in which Mr Bush said European governments should spend more on defence – but suggested it did not matter whether it was to support Nato or EU operations.
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Washington has long seen the EU’s plans to develop independent military capabilities as subtracting from capabilities that should properly lie with Nato.
But in recent months US diplomats have indicated that this suspicion of the European Security and Defence Policy was coming to an end. Victoria Nuland, US ambassador to Nato, has said that the ESDP was now being viewed as complementing rather than supplanting Nato.
But for the first time, Mr Bush signalled support for the approach: “Building a strong Nato alliance also requires a strong European defence capacity. So at this summit I will encourage our European partners to increase their defence investments to support both Nato and EU operations.
Full article: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/96460838-00a4-11dd-a0c5-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
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