By Alistair Smout and Sarah Marsh
LONDON/BERLIN (Reuters) -Britain and Germany signed a landmark defence agreement on Wednesday and pledged to co-operate on exercises on NATO’s eastern flank as they stressed the need for Europe to be able to defend itself given possible escalation in the war in Ukraine.
Europe’s two biggest spenders on defence said the pact includes a commitment to develop new weapons that have a greater range and accuracy than current long-range missile systems like Storm Shadow, which Britain has given to Ukraine.
Highlighting their security concerns, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on allies to respond to evidence that North Korea is providing Russia with troops to get involved in the war.
“I see this as a sign of desperation, as well as a shocking escalation,” British Defence Secretary John Healey said at a joint press conference, adding it was highly likely North Korean troops had been deployed into Russia, but less clear if they had been sent to Ukraine yet.
German defence minister Boris Pistorius said he was “quite concerned about that development”, as it illustrated how international conflicts were increasingly interlinked, making them harder to de-escalate.
DO MORE TOGETHER
Britain’s new Labour government is seeking to reset ties with Europe on a range of issues, including defence.
Labour had pledged a security deal with Germany within six months of winning power in July, and both ministers said a broader bilateral accord was expected to be agreed in early 2025.
Healey said that previous collaborations between the countries on defence had been ad hoc, and that Wednesday’s pact represented the first ‘fully-fledged’ defence co-operation agreement between the countries.
Under the agreement, Germany will occasionally station planes in Scotland to help protect the north Atlantic Ocean, Britain said. The countries will collaborate on armed vehicles and land-based drones, as well as working to equip German Sea King helicopters – which it has given to Ukraine – with modern missile systems.
Rheinmetall will also open a new factory that will create 400 jobs and be the first manufacturer of artillery gun barrels in Britain for a decade.
Healey said that European allies needed to take on more responsibility for Europe’s security, and that Britain’s approach was a ‘NATO-first’ defence strategy.
“In a more dangerous world, allies are our strategic strength, and we must do more together,” he said.
Pistorius said that France, which has bilateral security deals with both Britain and Germany, was supportive of the new accord.
He added that Europe needed to do more regardless of who won next month’s U.S. presidential election, and that, while Scandinavian and Baltic allies raised the alarm when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, much of Europe had been slow to react.
“We pushed the snooze button and turned around, while the other countries stayed awake,” Pistorius said.” So we lost almost eight years, and we have now to speed up.”
(Reporting by Alistair Smout in London, Sarah Marsh and Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
