LONDON, Sept 22: British Prime Minister Tony Blair has offered his support for a Franco-German plan for a common EU defence policy to run parallel to Nato, English newspapers reported on Monday.

During a summit in Berlin on Saturday between Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac the three leaders declared themselves “convinced that the EU must be able to plan and conduct operations without the backing of Nato assets and Nato capability,” the right-wing Daily Telegraph reported, citing a document published in the German Der Spiegel newspaper.

According to an internal document approved by the three leaders in Berlin the “goal remains to achieve such a planning and implementation capacity either in consensus with the 25 (present and future EU states) but also in a circle of interested partners”, the Financial Times said.

No official document on European defence was published after the Berlin summit.

The German government will present this accord as a “major concession” by the British, according to The Telegraph.

Downing Street flatly denied that Britain had abandoned its core policy of linkage to Nato, the daily continued.

According to the FT, this concession will allow Blair to display his commitment to Europe despite Britain’s failure to adopt the euro common currency.

In April, France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg launched plans for such an EU planning capability independent of Nato.—AFP