Romanian Pres Says There Will Be No Competition Btw EU’s Armed Forces, NATO

Basescu and Scheffer held a brief press conference after their meeting at the NATO headquarters in Brussels during which they were asked to voice out their opinions regarding the intention of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to strengthen the EU security and defense policy.

Scheffer said NATO backs Sarkozy’s intention to strengthen the NATO-EU collaboration, stressing a strong EU security and defense policy enforces NATO interest.

Basescu, in turn, said there would be no competition between the EU’s armed forces and NATO, stressing EU must develop its own security capacities by means of a strong collaboration with NATO.

The two officials said they also discussed, among other issues, about the NATO Summit hosted by Bucharest in April, the military troops in Afghanistan, the situations in the Western Balkans and the Black Sea, as well as about NATO’s enlargement.

Basescu said they also talked about NATO’s anti-missile shield targeting to equally protect all member states.