UK stays out as EU launches defence research fund

BRUSSELS, Nov 13 (Reuters) The European Union launched a new common fund for defence research today despite a refusal to take part by military heavyweight Britain, which argued it already spends heavily in the area.

In a further sign of British caution over moves to build a common European defence policy, the UK blocked agreement on the future budget of the two-year-old agency set up to coordinate defence moves, saying it wanted more clarity on spending plans.

Eighteen EU countries plus Norway contributed 54 million euros ( million) to the research fund in a rare step towards pooling the bloc's national defence budgets and so narrowing the technology lead of the United States.

''Defence research was regarded in Europe as a game only six people played,'' Nick Witney, chief of the European Defence Agency (EDA), said of perceptions that only France, Britain and a handful of others could afford to spend in the area.

''That's a fundamental dead end. If Europe is to maintain a defence technological and industrial base, we have got to harness the full capabilities of the enlarged Union,'' he told a news conference after EU defence ministers launched the project.

The research fund would be run by the EDA and focus its early work on technologies to protect troops in the field, ranging from detection of snipers in urban areas to new-generation body armour.

France, Germany and Poland are the largest contributors and the aim is to come up with results within three years.

Britain was also absent from a separate initiative launched today by France, Finland, Sweden, Spain and Italy to jointly develop military applications for the hi-tech wireless technology known as software-defined radio.

RESISTANT Britain's decision to stay out of the joint research pool has angered some European states, which accuse it of undermining efforts to develop a common EU defence policy.

''Britain is the most resistant and we are amazed at that given its previous commitments,'' one senior EU diplomat said.

The envoy, who declined to be identified, was referring to a landmark 1998 agreement signed between Britain and France seen as launching efforts for a common EU defence policy.

''The UK isn't participating in the project because there's a high degree of duplication of work already undertaken as part of our national programme,'' a UK defence ministry spokesman said.

Some critics, particularly British conservatives, say the EU research fund could harm defence ties with the United States and is a covert move by nations such as France to weaken NATO.

Ministers were due to approve today raising the EDA's budget to 29 million euros in 2009 from 22 million in 2007, but Britain blocked the 2009 component because it wanted more clarity on how the EDA planned to spend its money.

A British defence spokesman said Britain would look to find a compromise on the future budget of the EDA but that its view of the agency was more of a coordinating tool for member states rather than as a spending entity in its own right.

''We don't see it as putting money into a central budget. For us it is more of a dating agency we can use if we want to,'' the spokesman said.

REUTERS PDM VC1855