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Britain urges EU to make armed forces “inter-operable”

Iran Press TV

Wed May 1, 2013 5:51PM GMT

Britain is expected to urge its European allies to make their armed forces more “inter-operable” to make up for expected declines in defence spending by the United States, local media reported.

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond will make the call this week during a trip to Washington, where he will meet new U.S. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and Pentagon officials.

He will ask cash-strapped Europe to work together to make their forces more mobile and “inter-operable”.

Military inter-operability involves measures such as sharing equipment, joint deployments and common strategic planning.

This comes as the U.S. is expected to reduce military spending under “sequestration”, a set of spending cuts that came into effect last month, and is exasperated by what it sees as Europe’s complacency on defence.

Successive U.S. defence secretaries have made clear they are fed up with picking up much of the tab for European security.

However, many European governments including Britain are struggling to revive flagging economies after the global financial crisis and are finding it hard to maintain defence spending as they tackle big budget deficits.

“One of the points the defence secretary will be making is the challenge set by sequestration. Europe needs to do more,” a senior Ministry of Defence (MoD) official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “In times of austerity, not everyone can necessarily spend more but you can make your forces more inter-operable, more efficient.”

The official did not say which countries should pay more attention to defence. He said it was clear that some European forces were not as “deployable and mobile as they could be”, and cited British cooperation with France as a model to follow.

Britain and France in 2010 signed a cooperation treaty that has since seen their militaries take part in joint exercises, jointly develop new hardware and work closely together in Libya and Mali.

MOL/JR/HE