France, Germany Call for Europe-Only Military Force : Security: The contingent would operate outside NATO. British and U.S. officials are skeptical.

France and Germany proposed a separate European military force Wednesday that would operate outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--a move that was quickly questioned by Britain.

In a joint announcement in Paris and Bonn, France and Germany said they want a large force--French sources put the corps at 50,000--that could serve as the nucleus for a Europe-only military capability.

In a statement, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President Francois Mitterrand called on the European Community to “wholly or partially” entrust European security to the Western European Union.

They urged that a common declaration be issued on the relationship among the EC, the European union and NATO--but did not spell out details of what it might be. The exact mission of the proposed force was not clarified either, but French and German sources said it would be able to operate outside the NATO boundaries.

The concept, however, was treated with caution and skepticism by NATO officials and the British government. U.S. officials were reserved in their reaction.

“I am in favor of having plans--contingencies for Europe to be able to act outside the NATO area,” British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd said at a Commonwealth conference in Harare, Zimbabwe. “But I don’t want to see a duplication of what NATO is continuing to do inside Europe.”

Britain and the United States have insisted that NATO remain a cornerstone of European defense.

Late Wednesday, a senior NATO official said: “The most important thing is to maintain a transatlantic security link. We have no objection to building a European pillar of defense. But there is no point in duplication. But it is still not clear what the French and Germans are proposing: What is this new force’s mission? Who will be in command? . . . What countries will be represented? Where will it act? These questions are not yet clear to us.”

U.S. sources were taking a wait-and-see attitude, since the United States considers NATO to be Europe’s bedrock security force--while at the same time recognizing that Europe eventually will construct its own defense force.

Defense Department spokesman Pete Williams said U.S. officials could not respond to the Franco-German proposal until they saw its details. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declined to take a position on the initiative, which he characterized as “one of a number of ideas and proposals put forth” as NATO and Europe adapt to communism’s fall and revolutionary change in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

French sources have talked about a joint 50,000-strong army corps headquartered in Strasbourg, France, where the French and Germans have a joint 5,000-man brigade, based on both sides of the border along the Rhine River. Observers who have seen maneuvers of the brigade believe that it is more a symbolic than an effective fighting force.

France, while a NATO member, is not part of the alliance’s joint military command. It does not attend meetings of defense ministers such as the session beginning today in Taormina, Italy.

The French and Germans said their proposed force would come under the Western European Union, whose nine members--Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain--are all NATO members. But the WEU has no military structure, and its activities--supporting U.S. action in the Gulf War, for instance--have been programmed by senior officers on the NATO staff.

Ultimately, the Western European Union, established in 1955 for collective self-defense in support of European unity, would constitute the defense arm of the 12-nation EC.

But U.S. and British sources warn that the European Community should not cast off an American military link prematurely. The French and Germans said they want NATO and EC members Denmark and Greece to join the European union; neutral Ireland would take on observer status, as a way of solidifying the group as Europe’s defense pillar. The knotty issue of a separate European defense arm will be debated at the NATO summit in Rome next month--and at the European Community summit in Maastricht, Holland, in December.

France has long advocated a European defense force independent of the United States, while Britain has cautioned that European security will continue to depend on American support.

Germany’s reunification last year disrupted a decade-long effort by Mitterrand to forge a strong Franco-German alliance in the center of Europe. Since reunification, the deepest fear of French officials is that Germany would grow so preoccupied with Eastern Europe and the integration of the former East Germany that it would forget the years of meticulous diplomacy it took to forge the Franco-German alliance.

In this respect, the decision to create a joint military force was more important for France than it was for Germany.

But the move also reflected France’s resentment of what it feels has been heavy-handed U.S. efforts to unilaterally dictate the form of post-Cold War European security. Just as France declined to follow President Bush’s initiative when he announced sweeping, unilateral nuclear arms cuts this month, the French have made it clear they do not believe in NATO as the only vehicle for European security.

The French, like the Germans, claimed publicly that the move to create the largely symbolic military force was not meant as a challenge to NATO.

But the French press quickly, and somewhat gleefully, interpreted the announcement as a slap at Britain and the United States. Le Monde’s front-page editorial cartoon Wednesday showed rifle-bearing soldiers Mitterrand and Kohl marching ahead of soldiers Bush and Prime Minister John Major of Britain. Frustrated by the disobedient Franco-German pair, Bush is depicted as shouting: “Get in step, I said!”

Tuohy reported from London and Tempest from Paris.

New European Security Force?

PROPOSAL: France and Germany want a joint, 50,000-member force as precursor of a European army. Corps would be open to all members of nine-nation Western European Union, which would become European Community’s defense arm. Possible headquarters in Strasbourg, France. Alliances that will ponder plan include North Atlantic Treaty Organization, EC and WEU.

NATO: Alliance’s role is to safeguard peace through solidarity. Its 16 members agree to treat an armed attack on one as an attack against all. European Command is in Casteau, Belgium. Atlantic Ocean Command is in Norfolk, Va. Channel Command is in Northwood, England.

1990 NATO military forces: Belgium* (**): 110,000 Britain* (**): 322,000 Canada: 89,000 Denmark **: 31,000 France* (**): 554,000 Germany* (**): 496,000 Greece **: 201,000 Italy* (**): 450,000 Luxembourg* (**): 1,000 Netherlands* (**): 107,000 Norway: 40,000 Portugal* (**): 105,000 Spain* (**): 308,000 Turkey: 780,000 United States: 2,242,000 Iceland: No forces *Also member of WEU, which seeks to harmonize views on security and defense

**Also member of EC, which seeks to promote harmonious economic development

Sources: NATO Statistical Analysis Service, Europa World Year Book