EU pledges 'rapid' force troops

BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- European Union defence ministers have pledged troops, ships and planes to a rapid reaction force saying it is the first step in building up the EU's military power.

A draft communique said more than 100,000 troops, some 400 aircraft and 100 ships would be available to respond to crises once the force is set up.

The rapid reaction force would be deployed on a variety of tasks from evacuation of EU nationals to peace enforcement by heavily armed combat troops.

The communique said the "force catalogue" confirmed that the 15-member Union would meet its 2003 goal of being able to call on up to 60,000 troops within 60 days at any one time for missions lasting up to 12 months.

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Britain and Germany went out of their way to stress that the force would be no substitute for NATO, and would not weaken the Atlantic alliance. They said a mission on the scale of last year's Kosovo intervention was not imaginable without NATO.

"We must not allow the slightest breath of suspicion to arise that we want to quit NATO," German Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping warned. Europe's collective defence remained "the business of NATO alone."

The draft communique added: "This process ... does not involve the establishment of a European Army."

Ministers agreed they would all need to deliver improvements beyond 2003 to create a reality rather than a paper exercise.

"It remains essential to the credibility and the effectiveness of the European security and defence policy that the EU military capability for crisis management be reinforced, so that the EU is in a position to intervene with or without recourse to NATO assets," the communique said.

EU officials said missions "without recourse to NATO assets" referred to operations on a modest scale that would have no real need of NATO's full spectrum of military capabilities.

"It's going to make NATO stronger, not weaker." said British Chief of Staff General Sir Charles Guthrie. "NATO is the bedrock of our security."

The EU force was "not something extra" and would not mean additional commitments dragging European NATO members into "things that we wouldn't be doing normally."

The EU's foreign and security policy chief, Javier Solana, said: "We have completed a serious first step ... we have much of what we need ... we are committed and determined to provide the rest in time to meet our deadline."

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, in a speech prepared for Tuesday in Berlin, said "the development of European capabilities makes sense."

He added that the Brussels conference had put commitments on the table to a very ambitious goal, underscoring that Europe must have the means, not just institutions, to realise its security policy.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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