Strasbourg, 3 June – Greek Defence Minister, Yannos Papantoniou, said on Tuesday that Greece was in favour of a joint United States-European Union (EU) ban on the sale of weapons of mass destruction.

Replying to a question from Teddy Taylor (UK/Con), Mr Papantoniou noted that the G8 leaders had “gone in the direction” of prohibiting such sales at their summit in Evian, and pledged that Greece would “do as much as possible” to help ensure that the EU implemented a ban. Mr Taylor was referring to the fact that two European countries and the United States had sold the disputed weapons to Iraq.

In reply to a question from Assembly Defence Committee Chairman John Wilkinson (UK/Con), Mr Papantoniou said that the “next few years will be vital” in boosting EU high technology research spending. If funding does not increase, he said, “defence will suffer in particular, and we will lose ground compared to the United States.” In 2001, the United States spent 35 million dollars on defence research and the EU nine  million.

In reply to a question from Humphrey Malins (UK/Con) on whether a European naval fleet would be created within the next decade, Mr Papantoniou said that naval vessels might be used to manage a crisis, but that governments had not raised the question of a single European fleet. Mr Wilkinson (UK/Con) had earlier called for EU countries to “support multinational European naval cooperation (…) in order to be able to project a substantial marine infantry force into a potential conflict zone”.

Giving a full rundown of EU and WEU achievements during the Greek presidency, which ends on 30 June, he highlighted in particular the decision to create a European Armaments Agency and agreement on the need to boost the defence industry by harmonising equipment specifications. Referring to a report adopted by the Assembly on ‘Security in an enlarged Europe’ (Rapporteur Antonio Nazare-Pereira), he said he was in favour of including a mutual assistance clause in a European constitution.