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player ready...Britain signaled, however, that any military attack against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which Britain is expected to join, would be “proportionate and significant.” British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made that statement after the EU summit and said the measures taken there show “a further … widening and deepening of the international coalition” supporting the United States.
An EU official said there never had been a question of all 15 members committing military forces, as the EU has no combined armed force. “It’s clear that it’s a U.S. initiative,” he said. “You can’t expect the Europeans to go beyond a general expression of support for the U.S.” He said the measures agreed to Friday would give a “big push” to the fight against terrorism.
In addition to Britain, Europe’s other big nations–Germany, France and Italy–have expressed a willingness to commit troops to an anti-terrorist operation.
In a four-page statement agreed on unanimously, the EU heads of state and government expressed “complete solidarity” with the American people and said the EU would cooperate with Washington in bringing to justice and punishing the authors of the Sept. 11 attack on the United States and their accomplices. They said an American military response was legitimate.
“Each according to its means, the member countries of the Union are ready to engage in such actions,” they said. “The actions must be targeted [and] can be equally directed against states that aid, support or harbor terrorists.”
The reference to “targeted” action appeared to mean the EU would back only actions aimed specifically at terrorists and not those that might cause civilian casualties.
The leaders appealed for “the widest global coalition possible” against terrorism under the aegis of the United Nations, a coalition that would include Russia, Arab and other Muslim countries, and anyone ready “to defend our common values.”
They also said they would work with these same countries, and with the United States, in a new effort to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and achieve a “lasting entente” on the basis of relevant UN resolutions. In recent months, the Europeans have criticized the Bush administration for stepping back from its role in the Middle East and have urged it to become more involved in the search for peace.
The leaders said they rejected any attempt to identify terrorism with the Arab and Islamic worlds as such.
The leaders agreed on the establishment of a European arrest warrant so that people wanted for crimes in one member country and arrested in another could be handed over speedily without going through lengthy extradition procedures. Justice ministers will meet Dec. 6-7 to work out the details.
Officials said leaders had not been willing to apply such a measure to people wanted in the United States because Europe is generally opposed to handing over criminal suspects to countries that have the death penalty.
The EU leaders agreed to set up a special anti-terrorist unit in Europol, the European police force, and to improve exchanges of information among their own police and intelligence services.
Without spelling out how it would be done, the leaders agreed to take measures to combat all forms of financing of terrorist activities, including adoption in coming weeks of a directive to deal with money laundering and a decision on freezing assets of suspected terrorists.
They also called for stiffer airport security measures, including “protection of accessibility to the cockpit” aboard planes and training of plane crews in dealing with terrorism.
The EU leaders said they would urge the 12 candidate members of the union, most of them in Eastern Europe, to subscribe to their statement and would explain its various points to top U.S. officials. A three-nation ministerial team will go to the Middle East to outline the EU position to leaders there.