Reply to an article in the Daily Telegraph

By Chris Patten

24 November 2000

Your latest scare story "Now Brussels sets up rapid response unit" breaks all records for fatuity. The Commission proposed a Rapid Reaction Facility more than six months ago. It is not a "French-led proposal". It is Chris Patten-led. It has nothing whatever to do with the even earlier decision by EU Member States to create a combined military capacity.

The proposal is that in fast-moving political situations the Commission should be able to short-circuit normal procedures in order to react more quickly. I was intensely frustrated last year when I had to move heaven and earth to mount the Energy for Democracy initiative to supply heating oil to Serbian municipalities supporting the opposition. We managed it in the end, and we have reacted very quickly with aid to Serbia since the fall of Milosevic. The Rapid Reaction Facility should make it easier to mount this sort of operation.

Lord Owen says the proposal proves beyond reasonable doubt that the Commission is inextricably linked to the new military force. It proves, rather, that he is as misled as I imagine your other readers must be by your recent descent into inaccurate sensationalism.

The Telegraph complains often enough that the EU is slow, bureaucratic and wasteful. It is a bit much when our efforts to speed things up are presented as a military coup.

Chris Patten(in Zagreb)

Read the article in Daily telegraph: "Now Brussels sets up rapid response unit"
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent