France is plotting to create a Euro Army

Moves to create a European Army controlled from Brussels have been revealed.

France is pushing for a new dedicated military headquarters and more fighting formations.

The French take over the EU presidency next month and will use their six-month term to drive forward ambitious plans to develop Europe's own military structures - a move which critics claim will undermine Nato by excluding the U.S.

Gordon Brown was forced to make a hurried denial, playing down the prospects of a Euro Army, as the fiercely divisive issue returned to the political agenda.

Critics in the UK are deeply suspicious of strengthening the EU's military identity - fearing that the French see it as a way to challenge Washington's world dominance.

Federalists, however, see a Euro Army as a key building-block of a future super-state.

As MEPs debated EU military policy yesterday, the chairman of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee called for the Union to develop more 'hard power' military capability and spend more money on a European Army.

Jacek Saryusz-Wolski called for 'a common foreign and security policy, including a European army'.

He said MEPs should in future have the final say on military missions under the EU flag - a move which would strip member states of a fundamental responsibility.

France, which along with Germany and Poland has spearheaded support for greater EU defence capability, has already indicated that the issue will feature heavily in its presidency, starting next month.

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The French are expected to call on member countries to boost defence spending and commit more helicopters and aircraft.

The proposals, to be unveiled by President Nicolas Sarkozy, will urge the creation of more of the rapid reaction formations - each consisting of 1,500 troops from member countries - which take turns to be on stand-by for EU peacekeeping or humanitarian missions abroad, wearing the Eurocorps badge.

Enthusiasts for these 'EU Battle Groups' see them as the most likely basis for a future European Army. There are currently 15, including one all-British formation, but the French are expected to push for a dramatic increase.

Opponents in Brussels responded by attacking current joint EU military efforts as 'impoverished and amateurish'.

Andrew Duff, a Liberal Democrat MEP and member of the European Council on Foreign relations, said many member states' armies were archaic and hamstrung by 'miserly' military budgets, so talk of ' burden-sharing' was often meaningless. He said recent research showed only a fifth of the two million troops across EU countries were in a fit state to be deployed abroad.

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