German Calls For Lisbon Treaty European Army

Feeling the US threat over Europe, some European nations are willing to counter Nato's rise as a global force since they have little say in the way Nato and Pentagon are being run today.

Berlin: German Foreign minister Guido Westerwelle has called for the EU to proceed with plans for a European army under the Lisbon Treaty, which he dubbed "the beginning and not the end" of a common security and defence policy.
His remarks at the annual Munich Security Conference followed a call by Berlin´s defence minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg to end what he called Nato´s "absurd" practice of unanimous decision-making.

"The (Lisbon) treaty lays out a common security and defence policy. The federal government wants to make progress on this front," said Mr Westerwelle. "The long-term goal is to build up a European army under parliamentary control. The EU has to live up to political expectations of its role as a global player."

The foreign minister sketched out a role for such an army as crisis management in a time of resource scarcity, to be developed by willing member states over time as a "motor for closer co-operation" in the EU. In a nod to Nato, Mr Westerwelle said such EU structures would not replace other military structures.

Germany´s top diplomat received backing for his plan from his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, who called for a "single European military-political space" in which no one country´s security was sacrificed for another.

"We want to overcome the bloc-thinking of the Cold War in Europe and create a new kind of mutual trust," said Mr Lavrov.

The weekend meeting in Munich, a think-in for defence players, was dominated by the ongoing standoff with Iran over nuclear uranium enrichment which Tehran says is energy and not military-related, as western countries fear.
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Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki made a surprise appearance in Munich, raising hopes of an important announcement, only to dash them again with a general statement about "conducive ground . . . to agreement in the near future".

Mr zu Guttenberg dismissed Mr Mottaki´s Munich trip as a "farce".

Turning his attention to Nato, he called on an end to the "cultivated absurdity" of the alliance´s principle of unanimity in decision making. "We talk too much and act too little," he said.

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