Paris, Berlin firm on EU defence pact

German coalition tough on arms sales, Airbus concerned

MUNICH, Germany, Feb 17, (Agencies): Europe must be able to stand on its own feet militarily, France and Germany said Friday as they made the case for a new EU defence pact that has rattled Washington.

In opening remarks at the Munich Security Conference, French Defence Minister Florence Parly and her German counterpart Ursula von der Leyen said the EU plan posed no threat to NATO.

But they stressed that the European Union needed the “autonomy” to respond to security threats, even while bolstering their commitments to the NATO alliance. “When we are threatened in our own neighbourhood, particularly to the south, we have to be able to respond, even when the United States or the (NATO) alliance would like to be less implicated,” Parly said.

Von der Leyen also took a swipe at Washington for cutting its aid and diplomacy budgets, reminding “our American friends” that they have “precious commitments beyond military means”.

The EU announced in December a permanent structured cooperation on defence agreement, known as PESCO, aimed at developing new military equipment and improving cooperation and decision-making.

Senior US officials voiced doubts about the EU plan this week, fearing it could draw resources away from NATO or become a “protectionist” umbrella for European defence manufacturers.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has cautiously welcomed the EU’s efforts to step up its defence initiatives, but warned that these must not undermine the transatlantic alliance or duplicate its work.

Batting away those concerns, Parly said “those who try to say it’s either the EU or NATO: it’s a false debate”.

But EU nations must be ready to act “without asking the United States to come to our aid, without asking them to divert their ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) capabilities or their supply craft from other missions,” she added.

Von der Leyen agreed that building up Europe’s military autonomy was compatible with shoring up the NATO alliance.

“It is about a Europe that can also add more weight militarily so that it can be more autonomous and carry more responsibility — also within NATO,” she said.

The European Union launched PESCO with much fanfare in December, spurred into action by Brexit, the migrant crisis, a more assertive Russia and an unpredictable White House.

“This was the wake-up call we needed to understand that we had to change something and stand on our own two feet,” von der Leyen said.

The pact, signed by 25 EU members, aims to get member states to cooperate more closely in spending on defence and developing new military equipment. At a gathering of EU foreign ministers in Sofia, the bloc’s foreign policy chief was also at pains to allay concerns about PESCO.

Federica Mogherini said talks with NATO defence ministers

in the blue and yellow colours of the Kosovan flag for a weekend of festivities, with Kosovo-born British pop star Rita Ora due to headline a concert in the main square on Saturday night.

The singer’s family left Kosovo in 1991 to escape the repression imposed by Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic after he stripped the Yugoslav province of its autonomy.

In 1998, a war broke out between Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian rebels and Serbian troops that left 13,000 people dead, most of them Albanians. Belgrade withdrew its forces the following year after a NATO bombing campaign against Serbia.

Meanwhile, Kosovo and Montenegro announced on Friday they had reached a deal on a 2015 border agreement between the two countries, a step towards Kosovo including US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday had allowed her to give reassurances that the EU plan did not seek to replace the alliance.

But she dismissed a call by Mattis for written assurances that common defence was solely a job for NATO, saying this was already “clearly stated in black and white in the EU treaties”.

Stoltenberg, also at the Munich gathering, reiterated that the EU’s defence pact should “not compete (with) but complement the efforts of NATO”.

He noted that once Britain leaves the EU, 80 percent of NATO’s defence expenditure will come from states outside the bloc, underscoring the importance of non-EU allies in the battle against security threats. “The EU cannot protect Europe by itself,” he said. European members of NATO have in recent months promised to step up their defence spending following complaints from US President Donald Trump they were not pulling their weight in the military alliance. France in particular has announced plans to bolster its expenditure, earmarking nearly 300 billion euros ($370 billion) of investments by 2025.

The head of Airbus’s defence unit criticised on Friday for not spending more on defence and said the new coalition agreement’s call for a tougher approach to arms exports could prompt the weapons maker to re-examine its business plans.

A coalition deal between German Chancellor and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), which must still be ratified by the SPD, has pledged an immediate ban on arms sales to countries involved in the war in and a tougher approach to arms sales in general.

“If additional restrictions are imposed, we would have to consider that in our strategic planning,” chief executive of Airbus Defence and Space, said in a telephone interview during the annual Munich Security Conference.

Meanwhile, initial details of a planned Franco-German programme to develop a next-generation fighter jet should emerge in the second half of 2018, the head of Airbus’s defence unit told Reuters on Friday.

Hoke said and Germany would work out in coming months how to proceed with the programme, including whether to bring in an additional partner country, such as

“We expect basic issues, such as how the project will be structured, to be discussed in the second quarter, so that the initial contours will be set in the second half of the year,” Dirk Hoke, chief executive of Airbus Defence and Space, said in an interview during the Munich Security Conference.

He said Airbus supported bringing other countries into the programme, which is envisioned as a family of systems rather than just a single new aircraft, noting that other countries could bring their expertise to bear on various aspects.

No decisions had been made on which company would lead the new programme, he said, noting that different firms could lead different segments of the broad project.

gaining visa-free travel to the European Union. Kosovo President Hashim Thaci said Kosovo’s parliament should now vote to ratify the 2015 demarcation agreement, as Montenegro’s has already done.

Attempts to hold the vote in the past have triggered violence in Kosovo, with MPs releasing tear gas in parliament and angry protesters clashing with the police in the street.

Kosovo’s opposition parties opposed

the 2015 agreement because they claimed it wrongly handed over some 8,000 hectares (19,700 acres) of territory to Montenegro.

On Friday, Thaci and Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic signed a joint statement agreeing that experts would examine the agreement and that “mistakes” could be rectified in the future. (AFP/RTRS)

Serial killer admits case:

Serial killer Michel Fourniret has finally “confessed” to murdering British language student Joanna Parrish in France nearly three decades ago, the family lawyer told AFP on Friday.

Jailed for life in 2008 for killing seven girls, Fourniret was dubbed the Ogre of the Ardennes.

He was interviewed last by two instructing magistrates in Paris and, according to lawyer Didier Seban, admitted murdering the 20-year-old Parrish and French teenager Marie-Angele Domece.

“He made detailed and repeated confessions. He clearly recognises, and this several times over, having killed Joanna Parrish and MarieAngele Domece,” Seban said.

“It’s a new development, a resolution of the affair, it seems, in a remarkable way,” he added. “It’s hard (for the family) but the end of a long legal battle.”

Parrish had been working as a language assistant at a secondary school in Auxerre, in the Burgundy region. (AFP)