Pierre Lellouche shoots NATO "bureaucracy" on sight
(BRUSSELS2) Pierre Lellouche, the (French) Secretary of State for European Affairs was on a working visit this Monday. A visit devoted to the ESDP and other subjects. He thus visited the EU General Staff, the Council of the European Union and the European Defense Agency. The Minister, who does not hide his interest in defense policy - he has in his cabinet an adviser specially dedicated to defense policy, a soldier, which in itself is a first for a European affairs portfolio - is entrusted to a few journalists in the premises of the French Permanent Representation (photo © NGV).
Great potential for the EU... « Our capacity is very small. We have 200 soldiers out of 30000 EU civil servants for 500 million inhabitants. But we have here a small planning tool that works: we were able to deploy a mission in Georgia in 72 hours, and carry out an anti-piracy mission. There is real potential. What is missing is probably a bit of political impetus. And I will work on it »
... but NATO must reform in depth. Pierre Lellouche did not hide his annoyance on the other hand on NATO. " I wish Rasmussen (the boss of NATO) to reform in depth (his organization). " But the Minister does not stop there and charges, saber drawn: " I saw the Shape. I told him how moved I was by the 2700 members of the General Staff who are present in Kabul, those are almost (three) battalions. There is a lot, really a lot to reform on the bureaucratic pace (of the organization). Having (15.000) people in NATO is a lot. There is no war in Brussels. We push a lot of paper. »
