DEFENCE: SPANISH PRESIDENCY OFFERS MORE PROMISES, FEW RESULTS.

The persisting disagreement on systematic EU access to NATO crisis management assets - held up all through 2001 by Turkish resistance - is "a problem of major gravity", said the Minister, lamenting that the "laborious" text that the UK had finally agreed with Turkey at the end of 2001 could not be adopted at the Laeken European Council in December 2001 "because of one Member State's reservations" - Greece. "We have to find a compromise", he said: "It is impossible to continue functioning on a case-by-case basis". But all he could offer was promises of further efforts to find a solution. When his remark - aimed at calming the debate - that "Greece should get the same treatment as Turkey, at least" provoked derision from Greek MEPs in the chamber, he retorted sharply: "It would be absurd if Greece at this delicate moment forgot the critical circumstances of international security".To develop EU defence capabilities in line with action plan adopted at Laeken, panels of experts have now been set up within the Headline Goals Task Force to analyse the principal deficiencies in the offers made so far. The inaugural meeting to put this plan of action into effect took place on February 11 - and, after overcoming some initial reticence, the Task Force experts met the following day with NATO experts. But it will be a painstaking process of case-by-case assessment before decisions can be made to fill the gaps identified. As the Minister admitted, there are 40 areas to be examined, and so far only 12 working groups have been set up (covering among other things strategic transport, unmanned aircraft, guided missiles and munitions, attack helicopters, command and control, communications and intelligence, theatre anti-missile defence, and - shortly - in-flight refuelling).The capabilities also need to be constantly reviewed and developed to ensure they are always able to meet the evolving challenges, but agreement is still required on how a fully autonomous EU capacity...