Brussels, 4th April 2008 -- Every leader normally wants to return home from a NATO Summit having achieved something. Britain got nothing at Bucharest. Mr Brown seems to have little interest in defence and was operating outside his comfort zone. Success went to President Sarkozy, and his agenda is not ours.
Geoffrey Van Orden MEP. Conservative Defence Spokesman, was in Bucharest during the Summit. He commented:
“It was the duty of the British Government to strengthen the political commitment of all NATO allies to the conflict in Afghanistan and to get significant numbers of additional combat troops deployed there. As it turned out, Afghanistan almost fell off the bottom of the Summit agenda. It was described in the Summit communiqué as the Alliance’s “top priority”, yet all that was achieved was a promise from just one country, France, to send one extra battalion – 700 men. And the price for this has been enormous.
“France has now got what she wanted – strong US endorsement of a separate EU defence policy, a stronger role in NATO itself, and the opportunity to host next year’s 60th anniversary NATO Summit in, of all places, Strasbourg/Kehl – the symbolic geographical focus of EU integration.
“The writing has been on the wall for some weeks – ever since US Ambassador to NATO, Victoria Nuland, delivered her bizarre eulogy on EU defence policy at LSE (25 February 2008).
“It has yet to be explained how the EU’s costly duplication of NATO defence structures, the discussion of each international crisis at two separate locations in Brussels, and the blatant unwillingness of most European governments to spend any more on defence, is supposed to strengthen the security of the democracies. It directly contradicts the opening statement of the Bucharest Summit Declaration which states that “the principle of the indivisibility of Allied security is fundamental".
Geoffrey Van Orden MEP is a former senior British Army officer. He is Conservative Defence Spokesman.