EU: German defence minister Franz Josef Jung said yesterday he supported plans for a US missile defence shield in Europe to protect against "rogue states" and terrorist attacks.
But Mr Jung, speaking on behalf of the EU presidency, warned that the controversial missile shield needed to be extended to cover southern Europe to avoid opening up a new political faultline across the continent.
Mr Jung also reiterated his support for the creation of an EU army, a proposal floated by German chancellor Angela Merkel last month. In an address to the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, Mr Jung said the situation in Iran demonstrated that it was necessary to develop missile defence.
"We shall make every diplomatic effort to ensure that Iran does not gets its hands on atomic weapons . . . sanctions seem to be working. But over and above that, we must consider missile defence," said Mr Jung, who is the first high-ranking German minister to speak out strongly in favour of it.
The US plans to base a radar station in the Czech Republic and missiles in Poland to shield Europe from attacks from "rogue states" such as Iran or North Korea. But the plan has angered Russia, threatened to divide the EU, and drawn a cool response from the German Social Democrats (SPD), who share power with the Christian Democrats (CDU). But German foreign minister Frank Walter Steinmeier has criticised the missile plan and called for a prudent approach and dialogue on the issue.
Asked by journalists about differences within the grand coalition in Germany, Mr Jung replied that the programme for government had a joint position on the issue of missile defence.
"We have international terrorism, we have weapons of mass destruction and crisis situations," he said. "In the world we live in today we cannot exclude that also non-state actors will eventually fall back on the use of missiles and this was written down in the white book [programme for government] and jointly passed by all parties."
Mr Jung said the planned US missile defence system needed to cover all of Europe. "[Under the current plan] Northern and central Europe would be protected and southern Europe wouldn't be . . . I regard that as a mistake. It would basically represent a division of Europe," said Mr Jung.
Meanwhile, on the idea of a European army, Mr Jung said: "We've addressed the battlegroups concept before and these started on January 1st this year and we will add sea and air capability to this concept.
"But in the long run we will strive for a European army which shall also support the European security and defence policy."
Last month Taoiseach Bertie Ahern downplayed the significance of Ms Merkel's call for the creation of an EU army and said he could not envisage it for more than a generation.